Journal of Indian Water Resources Society,

Vol 35, No.1, January, 2015

ESTIMATION AND VALIDATION OF RUNOFF AND SEDIMENT YIELD

MODEL FOR NANI CHIKALI WATERSHED
M. M. Vaghasiya1, M. Imtiyaz2, J. L. G. Kumar3 and D.M. Denis4
ABSTRACT
The hydraulic studies were carried out on Nani Chikali watershed which is situated in Narmada district about 23 kilometers from
Rajpipla. It is located between 22˚ 4’ 28.47” to 22˚ 7’ 24.47” N Latitude and 74˚ 33’ 11” to 74˚ 51’ 41.59” E Longitude. The weekly
runoff and sediment yield models are used for estimation of runoff and sediment yield in the study. The linear model was applied to
measure the runoff and sediment yield. The parameters of model were calculated by multiple regression method using SPSS statistics
software. The performance of model was evaluated by performing the quantitative tests which indicates that average absolute prediction
error ranged from 2.08 % to 4.16 % and 2.16 % to 3.96 % for runoff and sediment yield models respectively. The coefficient of efficiency
ranged from 81.88 % to 87.25 % and 81.68 % to 90.80 % for runoff and sediment yield models respectively. The overall results clearly
indicate that the runoff and sediment yield models used for Nani Chikali watershed can be use for predicting runoff and sediment yield for
similar watershed.
Key words: Hydraulic studies, Runoff, Sediment yield and Watershed.

INTRODUCTION 1977) is extensively used for prioritization of the catchments

Sediment modelling is required to provide basic information
for monitoring the water quality related to the river
management problems (Das, 2012). Sediment transportation
monitoring required a good sample technique which is very
lengthy and expensive. In the past, several studies focused on
the understanding of sediment transport dynamics (Pavanelli
and Bigi, 2005). The involvement of many physiographic and
climatic factors makes the rainfall-sediment yield process not
only very complex to understand but also extremely difficult to
simulate (Zang and Govindaraju, 2003). Prediction of runoff
hydrographs in ungauged catchments is traditionally based on
hydrologic model simulations. Almost all the studies used
lumped conceptual models, a few studies used semi-distributed
(Parajka et al., 2005), HRU-based (Viviroli et al., 2009) or
distributed models (Allasia et al., 2006; Samaniego et al.,
2010).
Literature survey revealed two groups of sediment yield
estimation models: physically-based models and empirical
models (Kothyari and Jain, 1997). The physically-based
models include agricultural non-point source (AGNPS), areal
nonpoint source watershed environment response simulation
(ANSWERS) (Beasley et al., 1980), water erosion prediction
project (WEPP) (Nearing et al., 1989) and system
hydrologique europeen (SHE) (Abbott et al., 1986).
Alternatively, lumped models such as the universal soil loss
equation (USLE) (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978), modified
universal soil loss equation (MUSLE) (Williams, 1978) or
revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) (Renard et al.,
1991) combine the erosion from all processes over a catchment
into one equation. Sediment Yield Index (Bali and Karale,
1 Research Associate, Anand Agricultural University, Gandhinagar-
382026 (Gujarat).
2 Faculty Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Sam
Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences,
Allahabad-211007, U.P., India.
3 Associate Professor, Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture,
Technology and Sciences, Allahabad-211007, U.P., India (E. mail:
lordwingirish@gmail.com).
4 Dean, Vaugh School of Agricultural Engineering and Technology,
Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences,
Allahabad-211007.
Manuscript No.: 1359
(Jain et al., 2001; Onyando et al., 2005; Pandey et al., 2007).
The connectivity of runoff and sediment are not always linked,
such as on resistant substrates such as limestone, but also
biological soil crusts can lead to high runoff rates but low
erosion rates (Belnap, 2006). Although the term hydrological
connectivity is also used for subsurface flow (Buttle et al.,
2004; Ocampo et al., 2006). Results from experimental plots
showed that coarsening of vegetation patterns lead to
significantly higher erosion rates due to concentration of
overland flow and higher flow velocities (Puigdefabregas,
2005).
Runoff modeling is essential for estimating the sediment
concentration in the streams (Kumar and bhattacharya, 2011).
Moreover, the estimation of peak runoff rate is required for
many hydrologic applications, including design of hydraulic
structures, flood prevention works and drainage design etc.
Sediment modeling efforts are aimed mainly at erosion and
sediment transport for erosion control planning, watershed
development and management, and assessment of water
quality (Machiwal et al., 2010). The objective of our study is
to estimate runoff and sediment yield on weekly basis. Runoff
and sediment yield was estimated for Nani Chikali watershed.
First we had estimated the weekly runoff and then with the
help of peak runoff and rainfall erosivity index, weekly
sediment yield was estimated, and compare the estimated
values with observed values.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Description of watershed
Nani Chikali watershed is located in Nanod Taluka, Narmada
District of Gujarat state. It is located between 22˚ 4’ 28.47” to
22˚ 7’ 24.47” N Latitude and 74˚ 33’ 11” to 74˚ 51’ 41.59” E
Longitude. The total area of the watershed is about 484.60 ha
out of which 382.50 ha is forest area. The nearest town is
Rajpipla which is about 23 kilometres from Nani Chikali
project and is well connected by pacca road. The watershed
falls under South Gujarat Agro-climatic Zone. The soil is
mainly deep black and clay. The soil depth is moderate to deep
ranging from 25 to 75 cm. The predominant texture of soil is
loamy and clay. The slope of the area is ranging from 0-25 %.
The soil in hilly area is subjected to constant erosion due to
lack of vegetation cover. The climate of the area is

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 J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 35, No. 1, January, 2015
characterized by a hot summer and dry in non-rainy season.
Temperature ranges from minimum 18° C in winter to
maximum 45° C in hot summer.
Estimation of weekly runoff
There is considerable interest in assessing the effects of
environmental change (e.g. land use, hydraulic structures and
climate) on the runoff hydrographs and water quality for which
accurate runoff predictions are needed (Bloschl and Montanari,
2010). The following empirical rainfall runoff model (Ojasvi et
al., 1994), on aggregate time scale has been applied for the
area under study for the estimation of runoff on weekly basis.
EWR = α0 + α1 r + α2 API + α3 NOR + α4 WEEK (1)
Where, EWR is weekly runoff (mm), r is weekly rainfall
(mm), API is antecedent precipitation index (mm), NOR is
number of rainy days in the week under consideration, WEEK
is calendar week number and α0, α1, α2, α3, α4 are coefficients.
Weekly runoff was calculated by adding rainfall of the week
and number of rainy days in that week. The antecedent
precipitation index was measured by using the rainfall of 10 to
20 prior days to the given day and the constant called recession
factor. It was found that the value of recession factor varies
from 0.85 to 0.98, and for all Indian conditions, it is taken as
0.90. WEEK is considered as calendar week number of the
year, the constants α0, α1, α2, α3, α4 were calculated using the
multiple regression method using SPSS (Statistical Package for
Social Sciences) statistics software.
Estimation of weekly sediment yield
For the estimation of weekly sediment yield 18 effective weeks
of monsoon starting from 23rd to 40th was considered. The
sediment yield model (Onstad and Foster , 1975) was used for
Nani Chikali watershed by taking the rainfall energy, runoff
and peak runoff rate as input besides other variables (KLSCP)
of USLE. The model suggested by them is as follows:
(ESW)k = [a (EI30) + b (Q.qp) c] KLSCP (2)
Where, EWS is Estimated weekly sediment, EI 30 is the rainfall
erosivity index, Q is total weekly runoff (mm), q p is peak
runoff (cumec), K is soil erodibility factor, LS is slope length
and steepness factor, C is crop management factor and P is
conservation practice factor. Suffix k refers to the number of
weekly events varying from 1 to 52 and a,b,c, are model
parameters.
Estimation of EI30 values for any location requires recording
rain gauge for long time. The model developed for rainfall
erosivity index on weekly basis for Srinagar region was used
here. The peak runoff was calculated by using the weekly
runoff. The different values of parameters K, LS, C and P have
been collected from the office of soil and water conservation,
Gandhinagar. And the model parameters for the weekly
sediment yield model for the watershed were calculated by
multiple regression method.
Absolute Prediction Error (APE)
The absolute prediction error was determined by the following
equation.
(3)
Where, APE is absolute prediction error in percentage, O i are
the actual and Pi are estimated values.
Coefficient of Efficiency (CE)
The coefficient of efficiency was determined by the following
equation.
(4)
Where, CE is the coefficient of efficiency in percentage, O i
and Ei are actual and an estimated value at corresponding time
and is the mean of the actual values.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The estimation of runoff and sediment yield on weekly basis
for Nani Chikali watershed has been divided into two parts. In
the first part the estimation of runoff on weekly basis as a
function of rainfall, antecedent precipitation index, number of
rainy days in a week and the calendar week number, and in the
second part, estimation of weekly sediment yield as a function
of rainfall erosivity index, peak runoff and weekly runoff. The
various parameters (α0, α1, α2, α3 and α4) of runoff model for
Nani Chikali watershed were estimated by multiple regression
method using SPSS statistics software, and found to be -7.244,
0.581, 0.361, -1.532 and 0.637 respectively. The model
parameters for the weekly sediment yield model for the Nani
Chikali watershed were calculated by regression method using
SPSS statistics software and found to be 3.12, 6.42 and 0.25
for a, b and c respectively. The different Values of parameters
K, LS, C and P were collected from the office of soil and water
conservation were 0.29, 2.83, 0.29 and 1.15 respectively.
In order to assess the conformation and applicability of model
the absolute prediction error and coefficient of efficiency were
computed for both runoff and sediment yield model. The
absolute prediction error (APE) was in the range of 2.08 to
4.16 for runoff model and 2.16 to 3.96 for sediment yield
model for different years. The absolute prediction errors for all
the years were well within the acceptable limit of 10%
(Moriasi et al., 2007). While the coefficient of efficiency (CE)
was in the range of 81.88% to 87.25% for runoff model and
81.68 % to 90.80 % for sediment yield model for different
years (Yin et al., 2009). Confirming the applicability of the
weekly sediment yield model for Nani Chikali watershed.
The estimated and actual weekly runoff of Nani Chikali
watershed for different weeks was compared for five years
2008-2012. The estimated weekly runoff and sediment yield
was in close agreement with actual weekly runoff and
sediment yield as shown in Fig. 1 and 2, which indicates that
the runoff and sediment yield model can be used to estimate
the runoff and sediment with reasonable accuracy.
The estimated and actual values of weekly runoff and weekly
sediment yield is presented in Table 1 and Table 2
respectively, while the values of absolute prediction error and
coefficient of efficiency is presented in Table 3.
CONCLUSION
The weekly basis runoff and sediment yield model were
considered for estimation of runoff and sediment yield for nani
chikali watershed of narmada district. The major part of the
study area is covered by forest land. Five years of runoff and
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 J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 35, No. 1, January, 2015

60
Weekly Runoff

50

EWR 2008
40 AWR 2008
EWR 2009
Runoff, mm

AWR 2009
30
EWR 2010
AWR 2010

20 EWR 2011
AWR 2011
EWR 2012
10 AWR 2012

0
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
Weeks

Fig. 1: Estimated and actual weekly runoff for 2008-2012

Weekly sediment yield

60

50 EWS 2008
AWS 2008
Sediment Yield, t/week

40 EWS 2009
AWS 2009
30 EWS 2010
AWS 2010
20 EWS 2011
AWS 2011
10 EWS 2012
AWS 2012
0
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Weeks

Fig. 2: Estimated and actual weekly sediment yield for 2008-2012

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 J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 35, No. 1, January, 2015

Table 1: Estimated and actual weekly runoff (mm) for year 2008 to 2012

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

week
EWR AWR EWR AWR EWR AWR EWR AWR EWR AWR

23 16.266 19.231 24.708 26.871 24.612 27.511 27.606 30.254 29.042 33.166

24 15.505 14.665 28.725 27.359 32.489 30.694 31.754 28.522 28.642 31.615

25 24.119 25.954 31.172 29.564 20.812 23.113 41.278 38.157 25.467 29.157

26 25.953 28.428 30.514 33.541 27.989 31.674 22.709 18.474 31.716 28.754

27 24.607 21.743 24.678 26.785 23.873 27.957 27.967 25.126 44.613 42.993

28 30.082 25.904 27.420 24.512 42.883 40.362 35.927 38.233 46.439 44.125

29 30.621 28.104 24.801 24.352 25.579 27.934 33.687 35.903 27.015 31.124

30 27.785 25.891 34.416 37.451 42.074 40.942 52.682 46.511 29.692 32.82

31 29.969 32.466 35.076 37.96 35.904 38.895 36.959 31.505 27.107 29.456

32 36.934 39.125 47.875 51.521 27.819 27.595 48.178 44.125 38.090 42.017

33 30.346 33.649 32.352 35.86 31.748 30.364 38.583 35.097 34.514 34.972

34 26.178 22.591 38.107 40.352 35.511 38.674 28.350 30.988 29.847 31.988

35 30.499 26.96 41.959 38.946 26.184 28.512 30.809 31.806 30.946 33.915

36 34.285 31.953 32.669 30.156 37.479 36.652 36.288 33.724 36.523 35.724

37 20.762 16.27 26.444 28.409 39.000 37.67 54.294 56.512 52.636 55.122

38 31.330 32.05 33.082 31.754 40.631 43.198 36.087 33.857 48.336 46.548

39 30.830 33.162 29.020 27.856 31.818 33.962 27.288 24.302 28.212 27.302

40 20.442 18.431 20.721 23.862 32.656 31.621 26.998 28.857 28.224 30.426

Table 2: Estimated and Actual weekly sediment yield (t/week) for year 2008 to 2012
week 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

EWS AWS EWS AWS EWS AWS EWS AWS EWS AWS

23 31.345 28.752 36.286 34.821 32.203 33.263 38.253 33.21 40.871 41.125

24 25.455 28.562 35.626 37.921 38.502 36.328 40.095 38.452 38.779 35.181

25 35.011 33.205 43.125 43.458 29.54 31.891 47.314 46.122 32.194 33.817

26 39.639 41.501 34.269 32.658 39.563 42.593 30.263 33.981 38.306 35.178

27 30.634 33.845 33.583 32.109 33.702 35.632 33.264 35.106 50.827 46.784

28 33.613 36.004 34.137 36.877 54.354 52.987 43.32 44.148 55.135 53.481

29 33.771 37.103 31.511 30.614 27.536 26.392 42.143 39.051 32.944 34.215
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30 30.585 32.665 42.802 40.224 47.425 45.352 55.009 52.652 35.886 37.126
 J. Indian Water Resour. Soc., Vol. 35, No. 1, January, 2015

29 33.771 37.103 31.511 30.614 27.536 26.392 42.143 39.051 32.944 34.215

30 30.585 32.665 42.802 40.224 47.425 45.352 55.009 52.652 35.886 37.126

31 38.573 35.61 37.187 35.642 42.013 40.692 38.032 36.972 31.064 28.951

32 41.819 43.75 54.565 50.795 33.776 35.885 51.102 48.242 41.48 44.753

33 36.344 39.172 34.067 30.381 35.965 38.885 41.285 38.025 37.269 35.164

34 30.629 30.162 39.793 36.383 41.915 44.845 32.995 34.253 32.426 27.349

35 34.488 36.623 48.11 49.65 28.469 31.142 34.658 32.065 33.964 31.246

36 39.095 43.235 37.697 39.208 39.727 42.719 39.069 42.72 37.403 39.684

37 21.928 23.352 26.677 24.249 42.701 40.135 54.647 49.763 53.106 49.22

38 33.993 37.244 35.089 33.355 43.053 41.234 35.355 37.631 46.89 43.681

39 35.376 34.084 29.111 27.36 30.801 32.933 27.629 28.005 28.691 27.832

40 20.157 22.035 22.61 18.85 33.045 36.306 27.571 25.217 30.657 29.258

Table 3: The Absolute Prediction Error (APE) and Coefficient of Efficiency (CE) for the runoff and sediment
yield model
Runoff model Sediment yield model

YEAR APE (%) CE (%) APE (%) CE (%)

2008 2.08 81.88 3.96 81.68

2009 2.32 87.25 3.42 90.80

2010 3.05 82.14 2.16 85.71

2011 4.16 84.93 2.35 75.21

2012 3.76 86.09 3.53 86.68

sediment yield data were used to validate the models. During

the validation we found that the estimated weekly runoff and
weekly sediment yield was in close agreement with actual
weekly runoff and actual weekly sediment which shows these
models can be used to estimate weekly runoff and sediment
yield for the watersheds. The coefficient of efficiency, between
estimated and actual weekly runoff for 2008-2012 varied from
81.88% to 87.25% and for weekly sediment yield it was
81.68% to 90.80%. The absolute prediction error between the
estimated and actual values varies from 2.08% to 4.16% for
runoff model and 2.16% to 3.96% for sediment yield model,
which is within acceptable range of 10%. The overall results
clearly indicate that the runoff and sediment yield models can
be used to estimate runoff and sediment yield for Nani Chikali
watershed with reasonable accuracy.
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