Introduction to hydrology and the

water balance
 The science of hydrology
The science that describes and predicts the occurrence, circulation
and distribution of the earth’s water. There are two principal foci:
• The global hydrologic cycle: Transfers of water between the land,
ocean and atmosphere
• The land phase of the hydrologic cycle: The movement of water
on and under the land surface, physical and chemical interactions
with earth materials accompanying that movement, and the
biological processes that conduct of affect that movement.

Q: Why study hydrology?

A: Human systems are intimately shaped by the availability, flows
and quality of water.
• Agriculture
• Manufacturing
• Mining
• Recreation
 The science of hydrology (cont.)

The figure at left shows the

position of hydrologic science in
the spectrum of basic sciences to
water resource management.
Hydrology is an interdisciplinary
geoscience built upon the basic
sciences of mathematics, statistics
physics, chemistry and biology.

Dingman 2002, Figure 1-4

Space and time scales of hydrologic processes

Hydrologic processes encompass

a suite of space and time scales;
from thunderstorms that occur over
the course of minutes to hours and
space scales of a few kilometers
or less to the development of
major river basins taking place over
millions to tens of millions of years
and space scales of 1000-10,000
km.

Dingman 2002, Figure 1-3

 Water in the west
The challenge of water resource
management in Colorado and the
west brings home the importance of
hydrology as a field of research and
as a vocation. Most of the
precipitation in Colorado and the
west falls in the mountains and must
be diverted to where it is needed for
agriculture and other uses.

Office of the State Engineer, Colorado

There is strong consensus from

different climate models that the west
will become warmer, affecting the winter
snowpack that drives water management
strategies. It may become drier as well.
Can we meet these challenges?

IPCC-AR4
 Boulder Colorado water supply
The City of Boulder receives its raw water supply from:

Barker Reservoir -- 40% of the city's annual water supply

Silver Lake Watershed -- 40% of the city's annual water supply
Boulder Reservoir -- 20% of the city's annual water supply
On any given day, the city may be taking its water supply from any one of these sources or even all three.

Barker Reservoir
The Barker System was originally constructed as a hydroelectric power generation system by the Colorado
Power Company. It was later purchased by Public Service Company of Colorado, now known as Xcel
Energy. The system, consisting of the Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric Project, Barker and Kossler reservoirs
and the connecting pipelines were purchased by the City of Boulder in March 2001.
Silver Lake Watershed
The city-owned Silver Lake Watershed is located on North Boulder Creek east of the Continental Divide.
Seven reservoirs are located in the Watershed. These reservoirs store water during high streamflow
periods. Water is then released during low streamflow periods to meet the water needs of Boulder.
Boulder Reservoir
The Boulder Reservoir, located northeast of Boulder, receives water from the Colorado River through the
Colorado-Big Thompson (CBT) system and the Windy Gap Project. Boulder's share of these projects is
delivered through facilities operated by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (NCWCD).
Reservoirs, located on tributaries of the upper Colorado River on the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains, collect the water. The water is then delivered to the eastern slope where is treated for municipal
use at the Boulder Reservoir Water Treatment Plant.

http://www.bouldercolorado.gov
 Colorado-Big Thompson project

The C-BT is the largest transmountain water

diversion project in Colorado. The water is used to
help irrigate approximately 693,000 acres of
northeastern Colorado farmland. Twelve reservoirs,
35 miles of tunnels, 95 miles of canals and 700
miles of transmission lines comprise the complex
collection, distribution and power system.

West of the Continental Divide, Willow Creek and

Shadow Mountain reservoirs, Grand Lake and
Lake Granby collect and store the water of the
upper Colorado River. The water is pumped into
Shadow Mountain Reservoir where it flows by
gravity into Grand Lake. From there, the 13.1 mile
Alva B. Adams Tunnel transports the water under
the divide to the East Slope.
http://www.ncwcd.org/project_features/cbt_main.asp
Once the water reaches the East
Slope, it is used to generate electricity
as it falls almost half a mile through
five power plants on its way to
Colorado's Front Range. Carter Lake,
Horsetooth Reservoir and Boulder
Reservoir store the water. C-BT water
is released as needed to supplement
native water supplies in the South
Platte River basin.
Colorado-Big Thompson project

http://www.ncwcd.org/project_features/cbt_maps.asp
 Alva B. Adams tunnel

East portal of the tunnel

Excavation crews spent four years,

from 1940-1944, drilling the tunnel.
The first water flowed east in 1947.
The tunnel is named for a U.S.
senator from Colorado who played a
key role in convincing Congress to
fund and construct the Colorado-Big
Thompson Project. The Adams
Tunnel is the longest in the United
States to provide water for irrigation.
The tunnel is maintained by the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation.

http://www.ncwcd.org/project_features/East_Portal1.asp
 Agricultural water use in Colorado

http://www.today.colostate.edu/story.aspx?id=5066

Dan L. Perlman

The bulk of water use in Colorado is for agriculture. Crops are grown with water
transported to fields via irrigation ditches (and this water originates in the mountains)
and from groundwater. The familiar “crop circles” of Colorado and the rest of the
west reflect the use of “center pivot irrigators” utilizing groundwater.
 Western water law: A complex issue

Water law in the west is a complex system of “prior

appropriation”. The two major concepts are: 1) a water
right is a right to the use of the water; the right is
acquired by appropriation; and 2) an appropriation is
the act of diverting water from its source and applying it
to a beneficial use.

Under appropriation doctrine, the oldest rights prevail.

The earliest water users have priority over later http://www.crwcd.org/page_147
appropriators during times of water shortage. Public
waters are to be used for a useful or beneficial
purpose. The appropriator can use only the amount of
water presently needed, allowing excess water to
remain in the stream. Once the water has served its
beneficial use, any waste or return flow must be
returned to the stream.

http://www.waterinfo.org/rights.html

http://cechpress.com/Current_Projects.html
 Properties of water
• Freezing point: 0oC (273.16 K)
• Boiling point: 100oC at sea level pressure
Key point: Liquid water exists at a wide range of temperatures

• Latent heat of vaporization: 2.501 x 106 J kg-1

• Latent heat of fusion: 3.337 x 105 J kg-1
• Latent heat of sublimation: 2.834 x 106 J kg-1
Key point: Latent heat exchanges (particularly liquid-vapor and vapor-liquid) play a
prominent role global energy flows

• Density of water at 0oC: about 1000 kg m-3

• Density of ice: about 917 kg m-3
Key point: Ice floats!

• Specific heat capacity of liquid water: 4.181 x 103 J kg K-1

Key point: You can put a lot of heat into a given mass of water and get only a small
temperature change.
Water vapor is the single most important atmospheric greenhouse gas. It can act as
a strong feedback to amplify temperature change from increasing
concentrations of other greenhouse gases such s H20 and CH4
 Properties of water (cont)
Dingman 2002, Figure B-2
The water molecule is formed by two
hydrogen atoms (each with one electron in
its outer shell) and one oxygen atom, with
six electrons in its outer shell. The outer
shell of oxygen can accommodate eight
electrons and hence has two vacancies,
the outer shell of hydrogen can
accommodate two electrons and hence has
one vacancy. The vacancies of both the
oxygen and hydrogen can be mutually filled
by electron sharing, i.e., as a covalent
bond. The covalent bonds are strong.
Also, the molecular structure is asymmetric
such that is has a positively charged end
(the side where the hydrogen atoms are
attached) and a negatively charged end
(the side opposite the hydrogens),
producing hydrogen bonds between water
molecules that are absent in most other
liquids.
 Properties of water (cont.)

Two water molecules can form a hydrogen bond

between them; the simple case when only two
molecules are present, is called the water dimer.
When more molecules are present, more bonds are
possible because the oxygen of one water molecule
has two lone pairs of electrons, each of which can
form a hydrogen bond with a hydrogen on another
water molecule. This can repeat such that every
water molecule is H-bonded with up to four other
molecules. Hydrogen bonding strongly affects the
hexagonal crystal structure of ice. The high boiling
point of water is due to the high number of hydrogen
bonds each molecule can form relative to its low
molecular mass. Due to the difficulty of breaking
these bonds, water has a high boiling point, melting
point, and viscosity compared to otherwise similar
liquids not conjoined by hydrogen bonds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_bond
 Water phase diagram

At the range of temperature and

pressures found on earth, water can
be found in all three phases, solid
liquid and vapor. The figure at right
shows the water phase diagram with
conditions on earth and other
planets plotted according to their
mean surface temperature and
pressure (1 atm is a pressure of one
earth atmosphere at sea level). The
lines separating the ice, water and
vapor regions of the phase diagram
represent equilibrium states; e.g., at
the line separating liquid water and
water vapor, either state exists with
equal preference. At the triple point
Dingman 2002, Figure B-1
all three phases exist in equilibrium.
Temperature versus density plot for fresh water and ice at standard
atmospheric pressure [from Maykut, 1985, by permission of Applied Physics
Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA]. Water density increases
with decreasing temperature until 3.98 deg. C. With further cooling, density
decreases. Hence as a fresh water column cools from the surface, it initially
sets up convection (overturning). One the entire column is at the temperature
of maximum density, further cooling leads to a stable (stratified) situation (with
the colder, lighter water at the top), and ice can form.
 Water as a universal solvent

Water is called a universal solvent

because is dissolves more substances
(solutes) than any other liquid. This is
because it is a polar molecule, such
that it easily attracts other substances
that have a polar structure. The water
molecules surround the charged
solute; positive hydrogens close to
negative charges and negative
oxygens close to positive charges on
the solute molecule. This interaction
suspends the solute molecule in a sea
of water molecules and it disperses
and dissolves easily. Hence, wherever
water goes, it takes along dissolved http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/ahp/SDPS/SD.PS.
substances. water.html
The water balance and principle of conservation
control volume

Conservation: inputs (I) –

outputs (O) = change in
storage (S)
I ∆S 0

I – O = ∆S watershed

• Strictly refers to a control

volume, but often applied to a
geographic region, most
commonly a watershed
• Conservation also applies to
energy and momentum.

commons.wikimedia.org
 The water balance of a watershed
Inputs (I), outputs (O) and storage (S):
I: Precipitation (P)
Groundwater in (Gin)
O: Evapotranspiration (ET)
Groundwater out (Gout)
River discharge (Q)
Storage (S): In groundwater, rivers
and lakes

Dingman 2002, Fig. 2-3

What can we usually measure?
∆S = P + Gin – (Q + ET + Gout)
P: rain gauges
Q: stream gauges
If we assume that Gin and Gout are
ET: hard to get except local values
negligible, and that for the long-term
Gin: hard to get, assume zero
annual mean, ∆S is zero, then:
Gout: hard to get, assume zero
S: often hard to get
P = ET + Q, or ET = P - Q
 Dimensions and Units

Length = L (meters)
Volume = V
V = L3 , typically m-3 or km-3
Mass = m (kilograms)
Density (ρ) is often assumed to be constant for liquid water (1000
kg m-3) hence water mass m = ρ V (this means that
conservation of mass equals conservation of volume)
Inputs (I) and outputs (O) are often expressed as rates of fluxes, or
volume/time (e.g., m-3 s-1); storage changes must have the
same units.
Inputs, outputs and storage changes can also be expressed as a
change in water depth (m) averaged over the watershed. Simply
divide by the area of the watershed (m-3 s-1 / m2 = m s-1). In this
case, instead of discharge Q we speak of runoff R.
 A few unit conversions

One still commonly sees English units in hydrology.

One may have to convert units:

1 m = 39.36 inches = 3.28 feet

1 m3s-1 = 35.29 f3s-1

m3s-1 is often stated as cms

f3s-1 is often stated as cfs
 A few other important concepts

Residence time (TR, units of time), also called turnover time, how
long on average does a given water “parcel” remain in storage.

RT= S/I = S/O (assumes that I=O, that is, steady state)
Units: S= m3, I or O = m3 s-1, hence TR= 1/s-1 = s
Assumes we can accurately measure S

Runoff ratio (P/R): fraction of precipitation that appears as runoff.

Again use long term annual means for P and R,
• Low runoff ratio: Water loss from ET is big
• High runoff ratio: Water loss from ET is small
 Some local numbers
Middle Boulder Creek: 06725500 (Nederland)
Annual Precipitation (P)
Average Q = 54.4 cfs (ft3 s-1) Berthoud Pass: 95 cm
= 1.54 cms (m3 s-1) Niwot Ridge: 93 cm
= 4.86x107 m3 yr-1 Gross Reservoir 53 cm
Drainage area = 36.2 mi2 City of Boulder: 48 cm (19 in)
= 93.8 km2
= 9.38x107 m2
R = 4.86x107 m3 yr-1/9.38x107 m2 = 52 cm yr-1

Boulder Creek at Orodell: 06727000

Average Q = 86.1 cfs (ft3 s-1)

= 2.43 cms (m3 s-1)
= 7.7x107 m3 yr-1
Drainage area = 102 mi2
= 264 km2
= 2.64x108 m2
R = 7.7x107 m3 yr-1/2.64x108 m2 = 29 cm yr-1 Courtesy USGS