Hydrology: hydrological cycle,

hydrologic process,
measurement of rainfall,
numerical problems
Water resources and irrigation

 Watch Video: The Water Cycle (6.46 min).

Credit: National Science Foundation, Directorate for

Geosciences, Division of Earth Sciences. USA.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al-do-HGuIk)
Link

Hydrological cycle (Source: https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8210/8264025043_58e1fbef57_h.jpg)

Hydrological cycle
The hydrologic cycle consists of four key components
1. Precipitation
2. Runoff
3. Storage
4. Evapotranspiration

Precipitation
Precipitation occurs when atmospheric moisture becomes too great to
remain suspended in clouds.
Forms of water
Precipitation can become surface water runoff, surface water storage,
glacial ice, water for plants, groundwater, or may evaporate and return
immediately to the atmosphere.
Ocean evaporation is the greatest source (about 90%) of precipitation.
The annual precipitation in the country is estimated at about 4000 cubic
km.
As per the assessment of Central Water Commission (CWC), the average
annual runoff of various river basins in the country is about 2333 cubic km
which includes both surface and ground water.

Runoff
Runoff is the water that flows across the land surface after a storm event.
Watershed: The geographical area which contributes to the flow of a river is called watershed.
The major river basins of our country is as follows: (The web-site of the Ministry of Water
Resources, Government of India (http://www.wrmin.nic.in) )
1. Indus
2. Ganges
3. Brahmaputra
4. Krishna
5. Godavari
6. Mahanandi
7. Sabarmati
8. Tapi
9. Brahmani-Baitarani
10. Narmada
11. Pennar
12. Mahi

Storage
Portion of the precipitation falling on land surface which does not flow out
as runoff gets stored as either as surface water bodies like Lakes,
Reservoirs and Wetlands or as sub-surface water body, usually called
Ground water.
Ground water storage is the water infiltrating through the soil cover of a
land surface and traveling further to reach the huge body of water
underground.
The amount of ground water storage is much greater than that of lakes and
rivers.
It is not possible to extract the entire groundwater by practicable means.
The groundwater also is in a state of continuous movement, which is
exceptionally small compared to the surface water movement.
Lakes
Reservoirs
Wet Lands

Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration is actually the combination of two terms:
Evaporation: It is the process of liquid converting into vapour, through
wind action and solar radiation and returning to the atmosphere.
Transpiration: It is the process by which water molecules leaves the body
of a living plant and escapes to the atmosphere.
Evapotranspiration includes all evaporation from water and land surfaces,
as well as transpiration from plants.

Types of precipitation
Cyclonic precipitation: It results from lifting of an air
mass converging into low pressure area of cyclone,
due to the pressure difference.
It can be divided into frontal precipitation and nonfrontal precipitation.
frontal precipitation:
Non-frontal precipitation:
Convective precipitation: Precipitation caused due to the
upward movement of air which is warmer than its
surroundings.

Types of precipitation
Orographic precipitation: Precipitation caused by the
air masses which strike the topographical barriers like
mountains and can not move forward and hence, rise
up, causing condensation and precipitation.

Forms Of Precipitation
Drizzle
Rain
Glaze
Sleet
Snow
Snow flakes
Hail

Measurement of rainfall
Measured as vertical depth of water.
Measure the rain falling at a place by placing a measuring cylinder
graduated in a length scale, commonly in mm.
Rain-gauges: Any open receptacle with vertical sides can be used as a
gauge for measuring rainfall.
Rain is mostly measured with the standard non-recording rain gauge
(Bureau of Indian Standards code IS 4989: 2002).
The rainfall variation at a point with time is measured with a recording
rain-gauge, (IS 8389: 2003).
Modern technology - Radars (satellite), which measures rainfall over an
entire region.

Measurement of rainfall
Non-Recording Rain Gauges: Simon's raingauge
Most widely used by meteorological
department of government of India till
1969.

Measurement of rainfall
Important points for selecting the site for rain gauge station
These rain-gauge do not record the rain but only collect the rain.
The rain collected is then measured by means of cylinders.

Measurement of rainfall
Recording Rain Gauges:
1) Weighing bucket rain-gauge
2) Tipping bucket rain-gauge
3) float type rain-gauge
The gauge, records the reading - produces a record of cumulative rain
V/S time in the form of graph which is known as mass curve of the
rain.
From this graph we can find the intensity and various statistical
properties.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Recording Rain-gauges

Advantages:
The rainfall is recorded automatically. So, there is no need for any attendant.
It gives the intensity of rainfall at any time while the non recording gauges
gives the total rainfall in any particular interval of time.
It can be installed in far off places as no need of attendant.
Possibility of human error can be avoided.

Disadvantages:
It is costly as compare to non-recording type.
Fault may be develop in electrical or mechanical mechanisms.

Rainfall measurement
Used to estimate the amount of water falling over the land surface.
A correlation is found out between the amount of water falling within a
catchment, the portion of which that adds to the ground water and the
part that appears as stream flow.
A catchment of a river is shown with four rain gauges.

Average Rainfall Depth

The time of rainfall record can vary from 1 minute to 1 day.
Recording gauges continuously record the rainfall.
For any time duration, the average depth of rainfall falling over a catchment can
be found by the following three methods.
The Arithmetic Mean Method
The Thiessen Polygon Method
The Isohyetal Method
First
Second
(hours) (hours)

Third
(hours)

Fiourth
(hours)

Total
Rainfall
(hours)

A (Rain in mm)

15

10

30

B (Rain in mm)

12

15

40

C (Rain in mm)

10

28

17

D (Rain in mm) 5

Arithmetic Mean Method

The simplest Method
An average of all the rainfall depths.

The Theissen polygon method

This method war proposed by Thiessen in 1911.
The areas of influence of each rain gauge.
These areas are found out using a method consisting of the following
three steps:
1. Joining the rain gauge station locations by straight lines to form
triangles.
2. Bisecting the edges of the triangles to form the so-called Thiessen
polygons.
3. Calculate the area enclosed around each rain gauge station
bounded by the polygon edges to find the area of influence
corresponding to the rain gauge.

The Isohyetal method

The most accurate methods
Dependents on the skill and experience
of the analyst.
The method requires the plotting of
isohyets.
Calculate the areas enclosed either
between the isohyets or between an
isohyet and the catchment boundary.
The areas may be measured with a
planimeter if the catchment map is
drawn to a scale.
Isohyets: Lines drawn on a map passing
through places having equal amount of
rainfall recorded during the same period
at these places.
Planimeter: This is a drafting instrument
used to measure the area of a graphically
represented planar region.

Number of rain-gauge station

Examples for calculating optimum number of rain
gauges

Mean rainfall
The average or representative rainfall
at a place.
The mean annual rainfall - average the
total rainfall of several consecutive
years at a place.
A record number of years are required
to get a correct estimate - annual
rainfall varies at the station.
The mean monthly rainfall - average the
monthly total rainfall for several
consecutive years.
World Meteorological Organization
(WMO)

Month

Mean Total
Rainfall (mm)

Mean Number
of rain Days

Jan

20.3

1.7

Feb

15.0

1.3

March

15.8

1.2

April

6.7

0.9

May

17.5

1.4

June

54.9

3.6

July

231.5

10.0

August

258.7

11.3

September

127.8

5.4

October

36.3

1.6

November

5.0

0.1

December

7.8

0.6

Depth-Area-Duration curves
For designing structures for water
resources - the areal spread of rainfall
within watershed and the amount of high
rainfall that may be expected over the
catchment.
The rainfall depth is not proportional to
the time duration of rainfall observation.
If area small then, rainfall may be more or
less uniform.
If area is large, then due to the variation
of rain falling in different parts, the
average rainfall would be less than that
recorded over a small portion below the
high rain fall occurring within the area.

Intensity-Duration-Frequency curves
The analysis of continuous rainfall events evaluation of rainfall intensities.
From records of several part storms over
the area.
Rainfall intensity
Return period
by analyzing past rainfalls from several
events recorded at a station.
The frequency of the rainfall event: the
inverse of the return period.
Frequency (expressed as percentage) of a
rainfall of a given magnitude - the number
of times the given event may be expected
to be equaled or exceeded in 100 years.

Analysis for anomalous rainfall records

Rainfall recorded at various rain gauges within a catchment should be
monitored regularly for any anomalies.
Number of recording rain gauges located nearby.
one may have stopped functioning at a certain point of time - breaking the
record of the gauge from that time onwards.
A perfectly working recording rain gauge might have been shifted to a
neighborhood location - causing a different trend in the recorded rainfall
compared to the past data.

Two major types:

Missing rainfall record
Inconsistency in rainfall record

Missing rainfall record

Discontinued due to operational reasons.
Arithmetic mean method
Normal ratio method
Inverse distance method
Examples for finding missing data

Inconsistency in rainfall