ESC 410 WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING

SURFACE RUNOFF

Surface runoff is that balance of rain water, which flows or runs over the natural ground surface
after losses by evaporation, depression storage, interception and infiltration.

COMPONENTS OF STREAM FLOW

When a storm occurs, a portion of rainfall infiltrates into the ground and some portion may
evaporate. The rest flows as a thin sheet of water over the land surface which is termed as overland
flow. If there is a relatively impermeable stratum in the subsoil, the infiltrating water moves laterally
in the surface soil and joins the stream flow, which is termed as underflow (subsurface flow) or
interflow. If there is no impeding layer in the subsoil the infiltrating water percolates into the ground
as deep seepage and builds up the groundwater table (GWT or phreatic surface). The groundwater
may also contribute to the stream flow, if the GWT is higher than the water surface level of the
stream, creating a hydraulic gradient towards the stream. Low soil permeability favours overland
flow. While all the three types of flow contribute to the stream flow, it is the overland flow, which
reaches first the stream channel, the interflow being slower reaches after a few hours and the
groundwater flow being the slowest reaches the stream channel after some days. The term direct
runoff is used to include the overland flow and the interflow.

Direct surface flow can be analysed for relatively large drainage areas by the unit hydrograph
method and for smaller areas by overland flow analysis. The direct runoff results from the
occurrence of an immediately preceding storm while the groundwater contribution, which takes
days or months to reach the stream, in all probability, has no direct relation with the immediately
preceding storm. The groundwater flow into the stream would have continued even if there had
been no storm immediately preceding. It is for this reason it is termed as base flow in hydrograph
analysis.

FACTORS AFFECTING RUNOFF

The various factors, which affect the runoff from a drainage basin, depend upon the following
characteristics:

1. Storm characteristics
 Type or nature of storm and season
 Rainfall intensity
 Rainfall duration
 Areal extent (distribution)
 Frequency
 Antecedent precipitation
 Direction of storm movement

2. Meteorological characteristics
 Temperature
 Humidity
 Wind velocity,
 Pressure variation

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3. Basin characteristics
 Size and Shape
 Slope
 Altitude (elevation)
 Topography
 Geology (type of soil)
 Land use /vegetation
 Orientation
 Type of drainage network
 Proximity to ocean and mountain ranges

4. Storage characteristics
 Depressions
 Pools and ponds/lakes
 Streams/Channels
 Check dams (in gullies)
 Upstream reservoir/or tanks
 Flood plains, swamps
 Groundwater storage in pervious deposits (aquifers)

Rainfall intensity: Low intensity storms over longer spells contribute to ground water storage and
produce relatively less runoff. A high intensity storm or smaller area covered by it increases the
runoff since the losses like infiltration and evaporation are less.

Antecedent precipitation: If there is a succession of storms, the runoff will increase due to initial
wetness of the soil as a result of antecedent rainfall.

Season: In some countries rain during summer season will produce less runoff, while that during
winter produces more.

Meteorology: Greater humidity decreases evaporation. The pressure distribution in the atmosphere
helps the movement of storms. Snow storage and specially the frozen ground greatly increase the
runoff.

Size and shape of catchment: Peak runoff decreases as the catchment area increases due to higher
time of concentration. A fan-shaped catchment produces greater flood intensity than a fern-shaped
catchment.

Catchment slope and vegetation cover: Steep rocky catchments with less vegetation will produce
more runoff compared to flat tracts with more vegetation. If the vegetation is thick greater is the
absorption of water, so less runoff.

Direction of storm movement: If the direction of the storm producing rain is down the stream
receiving the surface flow, it will produce greater flood discharge than when it is up the stream.

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Topography and altitude: If the catchment is located on the orographic side (windward side) of the
mountains, it receives greater precipitation and hence gives a greater runoff. If it is on the leeward
side, it gets less precipitation and so less runoff. Similarly, catchments located at higher altitude will
receive more precipitation and yield greater runoff.

Land use: The land use pattern—arable land, grass land, forest or cultivated area, greatly affect
runoff.

Storage: The storage in channels and depressions (valley storage) will reduce the flood magnitude.
Upstream reservoirs, lakes and tanks will moderate the flood magnitudes due to their storage
effects. For drainage basins having pervious deposits, large ground water storage may be created,
which may also contribute to the stream flow in the form of delayed runoff.

ESTIMATION OF RUNOFF

The runoff from rainfall may be estimated by the following methods:

(i) Empirical formulae, curves and tables

(ii) Infiltration method
(iii) Rational method
(iv) Overland flow hydrograph
(v) Unit hydrograph method

Empirical formulae, curves and tables

Several empirical formulae, curves and tables relating to the rainfall and runoff have been developed
as follows:

Usually, R = aP + b (1.0)

Sometimes, R = aPn (2.0)

Where R = runoff, P = rainfall, a, b, and n, are constants. Eq. (1.0) gives a straight line plot on natural
graph paper while Eq. (2.0) gives an exponential curve on natural graph paper, and a straight line
plot on log-log paper; the constants can be obtained from the straight line plots as shown in Fig. 1.0.

Fig. 1.0 Rainfall-Runoff correlation

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Infiltration Method

By deducting the infiltration loss, i.e., the area under the infiltration curves, from the total
precipitation or by the use of infiltration indices. These methods are largely empirical and the
derived values are applicable only when the rainfall characteristics and the initial soil moisture
conditions are identical to those for which these are derived.

HYDROGRAPH ANALYSIS

Hydrograph Components

A hydrograph is a graph showing discharge (i.e., stream flow at the concentration point) versus time.
The various components of a natural hydrograph are shown in Fig. 2.0 below.

Fig. 2.0 Components of streamflow hydrograph

At the beginning, there is only base flow (i.e., the ground water contribution to the stream) gradually
depleting in an exponential form. After the storm commences, the initial losses like interception and
infiltration are met and then the surface flow begins. The hydrograph gradually rises and reaches its
peak value after a time tp (called lag time or basin lag) measured from the centroid of the
hyetograph of net rain, Pnet. Thereafter it declines and there is a change of slope at the inflection
point, i.e., there has been, inflow of the rain up to this point and after this there is gradual
withdrawal of catchment storage. By this time the ground water table has been built up by the
infiltrating and percolating water, and now the ground water contributes more into the stream flow
than at the beginning of storm, but thereafter the GWT declines and the hydrograph again goes on
depleting in the exponential form called the ground water depletion curve or the recession curve. If a

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second storm occurs now, again the hydrograph starts rising till it reaches the new peak and then
falls and the ground water recession begins, Fig. 3.0.

Fig. 3.0 Hydrograph with multiple peaks

Thus, in actual streams gauged, the hydrograph may have a single peak or multiple peaks according
to the complexity of storms. A complex hydrograph can be resolved into simple hydrographs by
drawing hypothetical recession lines as shown in Fig. 3.0.

It has been found from many hydrographs that the ground water depletion curves for a given
drainage basin are nearly the same and hence it is termed as the normal ground water depletion
curve. It has been found that such curves, or at least their segments, follow a simple inverse
exponential function of the elapsed time of the form.

𝑄𝑡 = 𝑄𝑜 𝑒 (𝑡−𝑡0 )⁄𝐾

Where Q0 = discharge at start of period

Qt = discharge at end of time t
K = recession constant

The equation produces a straight line when plotted on semi-logarithmic paper, which allows the
determination of K.

Baseflow separation

Before rainfall-runoff analysis, the base flow has to be separated from the total runoff hydrograph
(i.e., from the hydrograph of the gauged stream flow). Accurate baseflow separation is very
important for meaningful runoff analysis. Some of the well-known base flow separation procedures
are given below.

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Fig. 4.0 Baseflow separation techniques, a) horizontal straight line method, b) Straight line method,
c) fixed base method, d) variable slope method

Horizontal line (or constant baseflow) method

This method consists of joining the start of the rising limb of the hydrograph to a point “a” on the
recession limb of the hydrograph by a horizontal straight line (Figure 4.0a). This method assumes
that baseflow contribution during a storm is constant which may not be true. There is a tendency for
the baseflow to increase as the storm progresses, mainly due to the slow runoff and deep
percolation of the infiltrated water both of which raise the groundwater level and hence the
baseflow. A major advantage of the horizontal line method is that it is very simple to apply.

Straight line method

Here instead of drawing a horizontal line, the start of the rising limb of the hydrograph is joined to a
point “b” on the recession limb by a straight line. The location of point “b” relies on the study of
groundwater recession, which is based on the following exponential equation:

𝑄 = 𝑄0 𝑒 −(𝑡−𝑡0 )⁄𝐾

Taking logarithms of both sides of the equation, we have

(𝑡 − 𝑡0 )
log𝑄 = log𝑄0 −
𝐾

Where Q is the flow (m3/s); Q0 is the flow at the beginning of the exponential part of the recession
limb; t is the time (s), and t0 is the time (s) of Q0.

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Thus a way to isolate point “b” is to plot the logarithm of Q against t. In the exponential flow part,
this plot should give a straight line; the start of this straight line defines point “b”. This is shown in
Fig 4.0b. Point “b” usually occurs earlier than point “a” of the horizontal line method and the
approach is more plausible than the horizontal line method because it recognizes the increasing
contribution of baseflow to river hydrograph as a storm progresses.

Two variations of the straight line approach have also been used here. These are the fixed base
method and the variable slope method.

Fixed base method

The fixed base method is widely used in the USA and has been shown to give reasonable results for
large catchments for which the time of concentration is of the order of days. This method identifies
point “c”, the start of the groundwater recession, by assuming that the storm-induced component of
the hydrograph ends some N-days after the peak of the hydrograph. A straight-line tangential to the
previous recession is projected to time of the peak discharge of current hydrograph. Then another
straight line is drawn from this point to meet the recession limb at a distance N-days from the peak.
N is usually estimated from the catchment area as

𝑁 = 0.84𝐴0.2

where N is in days and A is the catchment area (in square kilometres). This approach may give
unreasonable results for small catchments where the estimated N may exceed the base time of the
hydrograph by an order of magnitude.

Variable base method

Here the previous recession is extrapolated forward to the time of the peak while the current
recession is extrapolated tangentially backward from point “d” to the point of inflection on the
falling limb of the hydrograph. This is illustrated in Fig. 4.0d. The problem with this approach is that it
predicts a very early start for the groundwater recession, thus leading to excessive over-prediction of
the baseflow. The inflection point marks the end of rainfall but not the start of groundwater
recession.

Example

The following data was recorded for a river during a storm. The catchment area at the gauging
station is 240 km2.

Time, hr Q (m3/s) Time, hr Q (m3/s) Time, hr Q (m3/s)

0 1.29 45 10.27 90 0.54
5 1.25 50 8.47 95 0.47
10 1.1 55 6.55 100 0.41
15 4.82 60 5.26 105 0.37
20 11.52 65 3.93 110 0.31
25 15 70 2.61 115 0.27
30 16.93 75 1.88 120 0.24
35 14.81 80 1.09
40 12.22 85 0.62

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(i) Plot the hydrograph and identify the rising limb, the recession limb, the peak and the
inflection point.
(ii) Separate the baseflow using each of the four methods described in turn.
(iii) Determine the volume of water in the baseflow for each method.
(iv) Determine the volume of water in the quick response runoff for each method.
(v) Determine the equivalent depth of water (mm) in (iii) and (iv).