WEEK 1: Hydrological Cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, surface runoff, storage, infiltration.

Conceptual model
describing the storage and movement of water, between reservoirs (lakes, oceans, etc.) | Water neither
lost nor obtained from
outside planet. | Sea rise 70 m ice caps melt | Most water in oceans, freshwater in glaciers. | Wint =
storage = Woutt water in
= water out in storage (no loss) | Amount of time water that stays in a storage, total volume/flux rate |
Australia high year-year
rainfall variability. Major droughts with interspersed with extensive wets. |Radiation is emission of energy
from a material object
in form of EMR. SUN is 150 million km away from earth, 1.4 million km diameter, earth = 12.8*10 6 m. |
All objects radiate energy.
Wavelength Inversely proportional to frequency. | E = T 4, small increase in temp large amount of rad.
(only for perfect emitter)
= 5.67*10-8 Wm-2K-4, (T (K) = C + 273.15) | mT = 2877 m K, hotter something is shorter wavelength
m = wavelength at which
radiation peaks | Joule = N.m, (power) Watt = J/s, Flux = W/A | Poles are colder due to larger surface
area of suns rays, smaller
flux. | Energy coming in = energy going out (radiation balance) | At top of atmosphere energy (solar
constant) =~ 1400 Wm-2
S = So(ro/D)2 | = (reflected/incoming solar rad) = 0.3 (earth) | E = Te4 (emissivity) | Incoming Rad =
shortwave, outgoing =
reflected rad + longwave from earth | (S/4)*(1-) = Te4 (assuming no atmosphere) | (S/4)*(1-) + TA4
= TS4 (atmosphere) |
Runoff Ratio = (runoff to ocean/rainfall)

WEEK 2: Weather (short term), Climate (long term) | Milankovitch cycles: eccentricity, obliquity,
precession of the equinoxes,
modulate solar dist (variability) | Sunspots, lower temp on sun more spots = more energy (variability) |
Global Climate Var :
external influence: insolation, sun spot cycles, internal oscillation in atmos ocean syst (El-Nino), Natural
random fluc (volcano)
man made |Ocean conveyor belt cause of climate fluc (long term) | Atmospheric CO 2 budget: Fossil Fuel,
Defore (changes in
albedo) , Ocean sink, land sink | Climate modelling used for future climate + projections of trends |
Evapotranspiration from
oceans and plants. (liquid to gas). Var affecting E: moisture in air, radiation, advection (wind transport
saturated air) |
Actual Vapor Pressure (ea): pressure of vapor in equilibrium with its liquid and solid phases. | Saturated
Vapor Pressure
(es = 0.6108(exp(17.27T/(237.3 + T)), Celsius | Humidity: Amount of water atmos can hold. Relative
Humid: (ea/es), changes due
to temp or evaporation | Eopen water, pan evaporation, E=pcEpan | Epotential = max amount of evaporation when
water availability
is not limiting, limited by amount of solar rad. E actual = actual amount of water E, limited by availability of
water in soil.
Dew Point Temp: T at which air needs to be cooled for water to fully saturate atmos. | E reference crop:
rate of E from an idealized grass crop. Crop co-efficient k c: ratio of E of any plant to Erc | Penman: open
water
Penman Reference Crop: Thornthwaite:
 Pristley
taylor
WEEK 3: Precipitation (P): any liquid or solid aqueous deposit in a sat (RH =100 atmos |Rainfall
extremely spatially variable,
deserts continental areas, polar areas | Equatorial, high P, due to solar heating encouraging convection |
Temporal variability
caused by ENSO | Requirements for P: Moisture Source, humidity, wind, convection (heating land)
bringing moisture from source
2. Turbulence: forcing clouds to shed water, collision, thunderstorm, lightning, pushing winds into sky,
lowering temp, low es,
humidity increases, causing P. | P measurement errors: wind induced errors, tipping bucket errors,
changes in location, spatial
averaging errors. Sub-daily: tipping bucket. Daily: rain gauge | Streamflow: V*A, direct measurement,
weirs, flumes, velocity area
method, stage discharge relationships. Weirs: Q=1.37H 2.5. Flume: based on height of water w/ narrow C.A.
| Average Velocity:
Vavg = 0.44*V0.2*depth + 0.56*V0.8d | Q Calc: Mean section Method average v of
section*average d*width
Mid-Section Method: v*d (at mid section)* average
width of adjacent sections
Stage Discharge Relationship: 1. Measure stream stage. 2. Calculate stream Q (v-A method) 3. Repeat for
different comb of heights
and discharge. 4. Fit relationship b/w Q and height. (rating curve) | Radar Based P: Sends a pulse of EMW
@ certain which can be
sensed by clouds/raindrops. |

Surface Energy Balance: Net Rad = LE (Latent Heat) + G (Ground Flux) + H (Sensible Heat)

WEEK 4: Catchment: Collection of small rivers and tributaries joining up into greater rivers. | Area of land
that drains to a point of
interest. | Water flows to contours. Catchment boundaries joins all high ground. | Outlet lowest pt, inlet
highest. | loosing
stream: river highest pt of water table. | streamlines orthogonal to elevation contour lines. | Hydrologic
Functions: start from high
pt, draw arrow to cell with greatest slope (diagonal, divide by sqrt2, straight,1) | Strahler order: two 3s
make a 4, two 4s make
a 5, etc | In = out + change in storage | rainfall*catchment area = volume(water) | Outflow = -volume |
Thiessen Polygons:

Pavg=
piA i
for each polygon. bisector of each straight line, make up boundaries. | Isohyetal: draw
Ai
lines of equal rainfall,
measure area enclosed by 2 adjacent lines, A j. estimate P as, M = number of lines. P j
and Pj-1, two lines enclosing
area. Linearly Interpolate b/w gauges.
 ponding: non-ponding:

WEEK 5: Hydrographs: Flow vs T. When water table > River, baseflow occurs. | Loss occurs through ET
and infiltration | Excess
Rain = Rain loss | Losses: Interception, depression, infiltration (contin) | In flow hyetograph, initial loss
occurs when flow is still
low once flow rises initial losses are complete, then CL starts | Initial depends on catchment wetness and
prop, pervious vs
impervious | Direct runoff start at same time as CL | Measuring continuing losses: phi index approach: 1.
data of streamflow and
rainfall 2. separate baseflow 3. Sum flow volume over all time steps. 4. Convert direct runoff to units of
depth. se5. Guess an
initial value for phi 6. Calculate excess rainfall using phi. 7. Sum over time steps (C PE). 8. Repeat for
different phi value until CPE =
depth from direct runoff No Ponding: rainfall rate < infiltration rate | Green-Ampt Method: assume no
ponding at start. Find
where assumption is incorrect. Everywhere else BEFORE assume cumulative infiltration = cumulative
rainfall. At ponding, find
cumulative infiltration using form, find excess cumulative rainfall in ponding and then after ponding.
Table: time, rainfall,
cumulative rainfall, rainfall intensity, infiltration rate, cumulative infiltration, cumulative rainfall excess. |
Volume of total excess
rainfall = volume of direct runoff | Straight line method can be used for baseflow separation. | T c = Time
of concentration, max
time for water to reach outlet. | More tributaries = more flow, urbanized and rural catchment effect flow |
in out = change in
storage | Algorithm for storage calc: 1. T time step for calc. 2. All initial values = 0 (S, I, Q) 3. For each
time step (i), calculate
RHS: Si-1 + [(Ii-1 + Ii) Qi-1] T/2. 4. Solve for Qi: Si + QiT/2 = RHS by using Si = f(Qi) (linear). 5. Calculate
Si. 6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for
each time step until Si = 0 | Table: Time, Excess Rainfall hyetograph, excess rainfall (inflow) in flow units,
baseflow (constant),
storage RHS, Direct Runoff (outflow), runoff (direct + base) |
WEEK 6: Flood Design: peak flow, volumes, shape, time to peak. | Failure means capacity is exceeded,
escaped from boundaries
AEP: Annual exceedance probability, ARI: Average Recurrence Interval, AEP = 1/ARI | probability of k floods
in n years,
Flood Size: Flood Frequency Analysis, estimation based on past records. Fit a probability dist to streamflow
observations.
Use that to extrapolate to estimate floods larger than data, estimate uncertainty. | Standard Deviation:
| Values to Focus
on: Annual Max series: max from every year, Partial duration series (all floods larger than threshold) | When
deciding independence,
see if discharge reaches baseflow. | Bayes Theorem: | Method Comparison: depends on
amount of data, APE, prob dist
outliers. | Confidence Limits: describe how much uncertainty there is in fitted prob dist | Plotting positions,
based on rank:
if m (rank) = 1, highest flow for that year. N =length of whole record (total number of data/years)
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