Introduction to Hydrology

Learning Outcomes
 By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
 Describe and explain the hydrological cycle
 Identify the hydrological cycle components
 State and apply the water budget equation
 Identify and able to apply the unit measurement used in
hydrological study

2 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Hydrology
 The science of water.
 Deals with the occurrence, circulation and distribution of
water on the earth and earth’s atmosphere.
 Concerned with the water in streams and lakes, rainfall
and snowfall, snow and ice on the land and water
occurring below the earth’s surface in the pores of the
soil and rocks.

3 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Engineering hydrology
 Estimation of water resources.
 The study of processes such as precipitation, runoff,
evapotranspiration and their interactions.
 The study of problems such as floods and droughts, and
strategies to combat them.

4 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

What is Hydrological cycle
 It describes the continuous process of water movement
in various forms, phases and places between atmosphere,
the land and the oceans.

 A complex process without beginning or ending.

 No water gained or lost but quantity available to user

may fluctuate due to variations of source and problems
encountered during delivery.

5 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

 Hydrological cycle schematic diagram
http://polaris.umuc.edu/cvu/envm/hydro/hydrologic-flash.html

6 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Hydrological cycle schematic diagram

7 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Hydrological cycle
 Water in the oceans evaporate due to the heat energy.
 The water vapour moves upwards and forms cloud.
 Much of the clouds condense and fall back to the oceans
again as rain, a part of the clouds is driven to the land by
the winds.

8 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Hydrological cycle
 On the land, the clouds condense and precipitate onto
the land as rain, snow, hail, sleet etc.
 Some of the precipitation may evaporate back to the
atmosphere even while falling.
 Another may be intercepted by vegetation, structures and
other such surface modifications where it may either
evaporate back to the atmosphere or infiltrate to the
ground surface.

9 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Hydrological cycle
 Through transpiration the vegetation sends parts of the
water from under ground back to the atmosphere.
 Precipitation that hits the ground and moves through a
network of gullies, streams and rivers to reach the oceans
is known as runoff.
 Once it enters a stream channel, it becomes stream flow.

10 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Main components of hydrological cycle.
 Precipitation
 Evaporation
 Evapotranspiration
 Infiltration
 Groundwater flow
 Runoff (surface runoff, streamflow runoff, baseflow etc)

11 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Catchment area
 A portion of the earth’s surface that collects runoff
and concentrates it at the furthest downstream,
known as the catchment outlet.
 Also known as drainage area, drainage basin,
watershed or basin.
 Separated from another catchment by a ridge called
divide.
 The areal extend of the catchment is obtained by
tracing the ridge on a topographic map to delineate
the catchment and measuring the area by planimeter.

12 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Catchment area

13 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Catchment area

14 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Catchment area

15 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Catchment area

16 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Water budget equation
 Quantities of water going through various, individual paths of
the hydrological cycle can be described by the continuity
equation known as water budget equation or hydrological
equation.

17 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Water budget equation
 Also called water balance is the accounting of water
for a particular catchment.
 For a given area, applying the continuity equation,
water budget can be written as below for a given
time interval.
Mass inflow - Mass outflow  Change in the mass storage

 Inflow, I: precipitation – rainfall, snow, sleet etc

 Outflow, O: runoff, evaporation, infiltration etc

18 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Water budget equation
Re-writing the water budget,
ΔS
I-O 
Δt
I1  I 2   O1  O2   S1  S 2 
2 2 Δt
Where subscripts 1 and 2 refer to values of the quantities
at start and end of time interval.

19 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Water budget equation
Water budget can also be written in terms of surface &
groundwater,
S  P  E  T  G  R 
∆S = change in storage
P = precipitation
E = evaporation
T = transpiration
G = groundwater
R = surface runoff

20 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Water budget equation
 If there is no change in storage in a given time span, then
the rainfall-runoff relationship will be,
R  PL
 Where L = losses = water loss from runoff due to
infiltration, evaporation, transpiration and surface storage.
 Runoff coefficient,

R
C
P

21 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Units of measurement
 hydrological calculations, the volumes are often expressed
as average depths over the catchment area.
 E.g. if the annual stream flow from a 10 km2 catchment is
107 m3,
107
 1m  100cm
10 10 6

 Rainfall, evaporation and often runoff volumes are

expressed in unit depths over the catchment.

22 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Commonly used hydrological data and their
units

Data Characteristics Units of measurement

Precipitation Depth cm or mm
Intensity cm/h or mm/h
Duration Hours
Evaporation Rate cm/ day, cm/ month, cm/ year
Infiltration Rate cm/ hour
Depth cm or mm
Runoff Discharge m3/s or cumecs
Volume hectare-cm or m3
Equivalent depth Equivalent cm over catchment
area

23 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Example 1.1
 The storage in a river at a particular time is 20x103 m3. At
that time, the recorded inflow and outflow of the reach
are 10.0 m3/s and 15.0 m3/s. An hour later the inflow is
15.0 m3/s and the outflow is 16.0 m3/s. Calculate the
change of storage and the new storage of the reach at the
end of one hour.

24 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Example 1.2
 A lake had a water surface elevation of 100.0 m above the
datum at a beginning of a certain month. In that month, the
lake received an average inflow of 5.0 m3/s from a surface
runoff sources. In the same period, the outflow from the lake
had an average value of 5.5 m3/s. Further that month, the lake
received a rainfall of 135 mm and the evaporation from the
lake surface was estimated to be 60 mm. The average surface
area of the lake was 45 km2. Write the water budget equation
for the lake and calculate the new water surface elevation of
the lake at the end of the month. Assume there is no
contribution to or from the groundwater storage.

25 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Example 1.3
 In a given year, a catchment with an area of 2000 km2
received 1500 mm of rainfall. The average rate of flow in
the river draining the area was 30 m3/s. Estimate the
amount of water lost due to the combined effects of
evaporation, transpiration and infiltration to groundwater
flow. Calculate the runoff coefficient of the area.

26 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Example 1.4
 Rainfall intensity 100 mm/h fell on a catchment with area
2.5 km2 for 6 hours. Measured runoff during this period
was recorded to be 720 000 m3. Determine the amount
of water lost from this total 6 hours rainfall.

27 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Example 1.5
 The total global water supply is estimated to be 1.36 x
109 km3. Convert these quantities of water into km2-m,
m3, liters and cubic feet.

28 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Example 1.6
 A catchment of area 250 km2 received an average rainfall
of 75 mm during the month of June. Calculate average
rate of water input in cubic meter per day for the
catchment.

29 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Global Water Budget
 Estimated total quantity of water in the world – 1386 M
km3.
 96.5% of this water is contained in the oceans as saline
water.
 Available fresh water – 35.0 Mkm3
 Liquid and fresh – 10.6M km3
 Frozen – 24.4M km3

30 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Estimated world water quantities
(source: UNESCO, 1975)
Item Area Volume Percent total water Percent fresh
(M km2) (M km3) water
Oceans 361.3 1338.0 96.5 -
Groundwater
- Fresh 134.8 10.530 0.76 30.1
- Saline 134.8 12.870 0.93 -
Soil moisture 82.0 0.0165 0.0012 0.05
Polar ice 16.0 24.0235 1.7 68.6
Other ice & snow 0.3 0.3406 0.025 1.0
Lakes
- Fresh 1.2 0.0910 0.007 0.26
- Saline 0.8 0.0854 0.006 -
Marshes 2.7 0.01147 0.0008 0.03
Rivers 148.8 0.00212 0.0002 0.006
Biological water 510.0 0.00112 0.0001 0.003
Atmospheric water 510.0 0.01290 0.001 0.004
Total
- All kinds of water 510.0 1386.0 100.0
- Fresh water 148.8 35.0 2.5 100.0

31 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Global annual water balance
(source: UNESCO, 1975)
Item Ocean Land
Area (M km2) 361.30 148.8
Precipitation (km3/ 458,000 119,000
year) 1270 800
(mm/
year)
Evaporation (km3/ 505,000 72,000
year) 1400 484
(mm/
year)
Runoff to ocean
-Rivers (km3/ year) 44,700
-Groundwater (km3/ 2,200
year) 47,000
Total runoff (km3/ 316
year)
(mm/
year)

32 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Applications in engineering
 Greatest application in the design and operation of water
resources engineering projects, e.g.
 Irrigation
 Water supply
 Flood control
 Water power
 navigation

33 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Applications in engineering
 Necessary for the following factors:
 The capacity of storage structures such as reservoirs.
 The magnitude of flood flows to enable safe disposal of the
excess flow.
 The minimum flow and quantity of flow available at various
seasons.
 The interaction of the flood wave and hydraulic structures,
such as levees, reservoirs, barrages and bridges.

34 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Applications in engineering
 Improper assessment can cause hydrological failures such
as;
 Overtopping and consequent failure of an earthen dam due to
an inadequate spillway capacity
 Failure of bridges and culverts due to excess flood flow
 Inability of a large reservoir to fill up with water due to
overestimation of the stream flow

35 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

 Overtopping
 Overtopping and consequent failure of an earthen dam due to an inadequate spillway capacity

36 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

 Bridge failures

Due to flood

37 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

 Culvert failure

Due to flood

38 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

Sources of data
 Data normally required in hydrological studies;
 Weather record – temperature, humidity and wind velocity
 Precipitation data
 Stream flow records
 Evaporation and evapotranspiration data
 Infiltration characteristics of the study area
 Soils of the area
 Land use and land cover
 Groundwater characteristics
 Water quality data
 Physical and geological characteristics of the area

39 UiTMSarawak/ FCE/ Bidaun/ ECW311

End