EAT 363 - HYDROLOGY AND

WATER RESOURCES
ENGINEERING

DR MAHYUN AB WAHAB
SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PERLIS
Today’s quote
 Course Outcome

Ability to DISCUSS and

PERFORM THE COMPUTATION
for hydrological process and
watershed.
 Syllabus

Precipitation
EXPLAIN equipment used in data collection of rainfall and
the various methods used for data analysis of rainfall
CALCULATE mean areal rainfall; Thiessen Polygon,
Isohyetal, and Arithmetic Method.
Infiltration
EXPLAIN the definition of infiltration, APPLY Horton’s
equation and Philip’s equation, CALCULATE the infiltration
rate and identify factors affecting it, ANALYZE the
infiltration model.
 Precipitation

• In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the

condensation of atmospheric water vapour that
falls under gravity (American Meteorological Society,
2009)
• Precipitation is water released from clouds in the
form of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow, or hail. Most
precipitation falls as rain (Howard, 2015)
• Precipitation is the primary mechanism for
transporting water from the atmosphere to the
surface of the earth (ww2010, 2015)
 How do raindrops form?

• Precipitation occurs when a portion of the

atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapour,
so that the water condenses and "precipitates".
• The clouds floating overhead contain water vapor
and cloud droplets, which are small drops of
condensed water.
• These droplets are way too small to fall as
precipitation, but they are large enough to form
visible clouds.
• Water is continually evaporating and condensing in
the sky
• Most of the condensed water in clouds does not fall
as precipitation because their fall speed is not large
enough to overcome updrafts which support the
clouds.
• For precipitation to happen, first tiny water droplets
must condense on even tinier dust, salt, or smoke
particles, which act as a nucleus.
• Water droplets may grow as a result of additional
condensation of water vapor when the particles
collide.
• If enough collisions occur to produce a droplet with a
fall velocity which exceeds the cloud updraft speed,
then it will fall out of the cloud as precipitation
• Precipitation does not fall in the same amounts
throughout the world, in a country, or even in a city
 Forms of precipitation

• Drizzle (Mist)
– Is a light liquid precipitation consisting of liquid
water drops smaller than those of rain - generally
smaller than 0.5 mm (0.02 in) in diameter.
– Drizzle is normally produced by low stratiform
clouds and stratocumulus clouds.
• Rain
– Is liquid water in the form of droplets that have
condensed from atmospheric water vapor and
then precipitated—that is, become heavy enough
to fall under gravity.
– Rain is a major component of the water cycle and
is responsible for depositing most of the fresh
water on the Earth.
• Glaze
– Is the ice coating, generally clear and smooth,
formed on exposed surfaces by the freezing super
cooled water deposited by rain or drizzle.

Glaze ice on a blade of grass

• Snow
– Is precipitation in the form of flakes of crystalline
water ice that falls from clouds.
– Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is
a granular material.
– It has an open and therefore soft, white, and
fluffy structure.
Malaysia Categorization of Rainfall Intensity

(mm in one(1) hour)

Type of clouds
 Types of precipitation

Cyclonic Convective Orographic

Precipitation Precipitation Precipitation
results to from is caused by results from a
the lifting of air rising of warmer, mechanical
converging into lighter air in lifting over
low-pressure colder, dense mountain
area, or cyclone. surroundings barriers.
 Measurement of precipitation

Amount of precipitation

Intensity of precipitation

Duration of precipitation

Arial extent of precipitation

 Device to measure the precipitation

• Rain and snow can be measure by various devices.

• These measuring devices and techniques are;

Disdrometer

Snow Gauges

Satellites

Radars

Rain Gauges
 Disdrometer

• A device that measures the size distribution of

raindrops
• The limitation of this type of measurement is the
area of drops can be sampled is limited to at most a
few cubic meters such as 5000mm²
• Not user friendly device
• The data are binned into size and velocity
categories, with hydrometeors assumed to be oblate
spheroids.
• These data are used to establish rain drop size
distributions, Z-R relationships, and particle size-fall
speed relationships.
Disdrometer
 Rain gauges Rainfall Measurement

• Rain gauges are most commonly used for the measurement of

precipitation, both in terms of rain fall and snow.
• Direct measurement

Non recording rain gauges Recording rain gauges

These rain gauges are also

It is a rain gage which does
not provide the distribution
of amount of precipitation in
a day. It simply gives the
amount of precipitation after
24 hours (daily precipitation)
called integrating rain gauges
since they record cumulative
rainfall. In addition to the total
amount of rainfall at a station,
it gives the times of onset and
cessation of rains (thereby
gives the duration of rainfall
events)
 Non recording rain gauges

• It gives only total rainfall occurred during particular

time period
• Under non-recording type rain-gauges, one most
commonly used in Symon’s rain-gauge
 Recording rain gauges

• There are three main types of recording rain gauges

1

3
Float Tipping Weighing
type rain bucket type rain
gages type rain gages
gages
 Float type rain gages

• A class of rain gauge in which the level of the

collected rainwater is measured by the position of a
float resting on the surface of the water.
• The rise of float with increasing catch of rainfall is
recorded. Some gauges must be emptied manually
while others are emptied automatically using self
starting siphons.
• This instrument is frequently used as a recording rain
gauge by connecting the float through a linkage to a
pen that records on a clock-driven chart.
 Tipping bucket type rain gages

• Consists of 30 cm diameter sharp edge receiver. At

the end of receiver funnel is provided.
• Under the funnel a pair of buckets are pivoted (the
central point which balances) in such away that when
one bucket receives 0.25 mm (0.01”) of rainfall it tips
(to fall or turn over), discharging its contents into
reservoir bringing other bucket under funnel
• The tipping of the bucket actuates on electric circuit
which causes a pen to move on a chart wrapped
round a drum which revolves by a clock mechanism.
• This type cannot record snow.
 Weighing type rain gages

• It consists of a storage bin, which is weighed to

record the mass. It weighs rain or snow which falls
into a bucket, set on a platform with a spring or lever
balance.
• The increasing weight of the bucket and its contents
are recorded on a chart.
• The record shows accumulation of precipitation
• The weighing and float type rain gauges can store a
moderate snow fall which the operator can weigh or
melt and record the equivalent depth of rain.
• The snow can be melted in the gauge itself (as it gets
collected there) by a heating system fitted to it or by
placing in the gauge certain chemicals such as
Calcium Chloride, ethylene glycol, etc.
RAINFALL STATION IN MALAYSIA
 Rainfall Station in Perlis

Fig. 2: Rainfall station in Perlis

 QUESTION 1

1. THREE types of precipitation

2. FOUR types of rainfall measurement
3. THREE types of recording rain gauges
Procedure for rainfall data collection in Malaysia

Tipping bucket

Hydro logger and Scram Card

Scram card read by Hydro Reader

Computer with TIDEDA software

 Radar Rainfall Measurement

• Rain gauge and weather radar is a tool to measure

rainfall depth.
• But, weather radar cannot measure the rainfall
depth directly as oppose to rain gauge.
• In Malaysia, weather radar plays an important role in
meteorological applications especially in aviation
safety and flood warnings through monitoring of
rainfall intensity (Adam & Moten, 2012)
Radar Image
Anatomy of weather radar
Alor Setar Radar
Part of weather radar Function

Transmitter Generates the microwave signal of the correct phase and

amplitude. For a weather radar, the wavelength of the signal is
~ 10cm
Antenna The main purpose of the antenna is to focus the transmitted
power into a small beam and also to listen and collect the
returned signal
Directs the signal from the transmitter onto the antenna (also
Feedhorn
directs the return signal from the antenna to the receiver)

Receiver Detects the signal returned from the target

Radome Protects the antenna from high winds

Location of seven radars in Peninsular Malaysia
 Radar operating principle

Working principle of Doppler weather radar (Source: www.hko.gov.hk, 2013)

Radar operating principle
 Classification of weather radars (Islam, 2005).
Band Wavelength Frequency Remarks
(cm) (GHz)

L 15-30 1-2 Suitable for clear air turbulence study

S 8-15 2-4 Not susceptible attenuation, suitable for

long range weather study

C 4-8 4-8 Susceptible to attenuation

X 2.5-4 8-12 Suitable for cloud study

K 1.7-2.5 12-18 Similar to X-band but more sensitive

 Radar Data in Malaysia

• Malaysian Meteorological Department

(MetMalaysia) responsible to collect reflectivity
data.
• Reflectivity data were captured every 2km by 10
range bin and there is no data for the first 4 km.
Data collected every 10 minutes
• Reflectivity data is in ASCII format and it contains the
reflectivity values measured in decibels (dBZ).
Example of Radar Data supplied by MetMalaysia (ASCII
Format)
 Read the radar data

• Get the radar data ASCII format

Step 1

• Using the reference table to get the

Step 2 video level

• Using the rain table to convert the video

Step 3 level to signal strength and rain rate
** (Currently MetMalaysia using Marshall-Palmer Equation)
 Example

A4v2XJ = 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 2 2 5 9
A 4 v 2 X J

Z = 200R1.6
dBZ = 10 log10 (Z)
Example : Signal Strength = R = 1.6
23 = 10 log10 (Z)
Level video = 2 23 dBZ √(199.53/200)
Z = 199.53 mm6/mm3
R = 1 mm/hour
 RADAR RAINFALL RELATIONSHIPS

• Power Law Equation between reflectivity (Z) and rainfall

intensity (R), known as Z-R relationship (Z=ARb), is
commonly used to assess the rainfall depth using radar
• The parameters A and b are usually different according
to the location and variation of the raindrop size
distribution in both space and time.
• According to Suzana and Wardah (2011), the use of
Marshall-Palmer equation for the Z-R relationship is no
longer appropriate for rainfall estimation and suggested
the most suitable Z-R relationship for particular location
need to be developed
 Z= AR b

• Where
– A and b are the relationship parameters,
– Z is the reflectivity data in mm6/mm3, and
– R is the rainfall rate in mm/hr.
• Currently MetMalaysia still used the parameter
developed by Marshall and Palmer (1948)
• Marshall and Palmer, had done an experiment using
sand paper and proposed the A and b parameter
(Z=200R1.6) and was used until today by many
countries such as Thailand, Australia, Libya and
Malaysia
 Question 2

Convert this reflectivity data to rainfall intensity

ATm3x6A
Methods used for data analysis of
rainfall
 Rainfall in Malaysia

• The seasonal distribution of rainfall in Peninsular

Malaysia is influenced by the two monsoons.
• The northeast monsoon brings considerable rain to
the eastern part of Peninsular Malaysia in
November and December.
• There is normally little rain during February and
March.
• From about June to September the general
circulation is dominated by the southwest monsoon
which, despite having crossed the high mountains of
Sumatra, brings considerable rain to all parts of the
Peninsula
 Rainfall Data
Yearly

Per Rainfall
minutes Monthly
interval
Data

Daily
Daily Rainfall Data
Per minutes interval
 Rainfall Analysis – Total Analysis

• Rainfall data are often analysed by calculating totals

on an annual, monthly, 10 or 7 days basis (Mohamad and
Roger, 1988)

• Normally, we present rainfall data in Time Series Plot

 Rainfall Analysis – Basic statistics

• Basic statistics are widely required for validation and

reporting.
• The following are commonly used:
– arithmetic mean
– median - the median value of a ranked series Xi
– mode - the value of X which occurs with greatest
frequency or the middle value of the class with
greatest frequency
– standard deviation - the root mean squared
deviation Sx :
 Graphical representation of rainfall

• The variation of rainfall with respect to time may be

shown graphically by
– a hyetograph, and
– a mass curve.
• A hyetograph is a bar graph showing the intensity or
depth of rainfall with respect to time
• A hyetograph is useful in determining the maximum
intensities of rainfall during a particular storm as is
required in land drainage and design of culverts.
 Hyetograph and Hydrograph
Kajian Hidrologi Bandaran Damansara Hitograf & Hidrograf 3110004/3111404
Time Step (5 minutes)
14:05:00 14:30:00 14:55:00 15:20:00 15:45:00 16:10:00 16:35:00 17:00:00 17:25:00 17:50:00 18:15:00
0

140.00

120.00

100.00

Discharge(m3/s)
6
Rainfall (mm)

80.00

60.00

10

40.00

12

20.00

14

0.00

rainfall discharge
 Mass curve

• A mass curve of rainfall (or precipitation) is a plot of

cumulative depth of rainfall against time
• From the mass curve, the total depth of rainfall and
intensity of rainfall at any instant of time can be
found
• The amount of rainfall for any increment of time is
the difference between the ordinates at the
beginning and end of the time increments, and the
intensity of rainfall at any time is the slope of the
mass curve (i.e., i = ΔP/Δt) at that time.
• A mass curve of rainfall is always a rising curve and
may have some horizontal sections which indicates
periods of no rainfall.
How to construct
1. Hyetograph
2. Mass curve
 Hyetograph

• What is hyetograph?
– A hyetograph is a bar graph showing the intensity
or depth of rainfall with respect to time
• Intensity (mm/hr) ‘vs’ time @ Depth (mm) ‘vs’ time
 Rainfall Hyetograph
5
Rainfall Intensity (mm/hr)

4.5

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
11:40:00 11:50:00 12:00:00 12:10:00 12:20:00 12:30:00 12:40:00 12:50:00 13:00:00 13:10:00 13:20:00 13:30:00 13:40:00

Time Interval (5 minutes)

 Example 1

• The rates of rainfall for the

successive 30 min period of a 3-hour
storm are:- 1.6, 3.6, 5.0, 2.8, 2.2, 1.0
cm/hr. Construct the hyetograph
 Solution
• Step 1 – place the data in • Step 2 - Construct the
the table graph (2D Column - excel)
Time interval Intensity
(min) (cm/hr)
Rainfall Hyetograph
30 1.6
60 3.6 5

Rainfall Intensity
180 5.0 3.6

(cm/hr)
2.8
210 2.8 2.2
1.6
240 2.2 1
270 1.0
1 2 3 4 5 6

Time interval (30 minutes)

 Mass curve

• What is mass curve?

– A mass curve of rainfall (or precipitation) is a plot
of cumulative depth of rainfall against time
– Depth ‘vs’ time
 Example 2

• Construct a mass curve for the given data

 Example 2
• Step 2 : Calculate the
• Step 1 – …………….. rainfall
Prepare and
understand
the data
 • Step 3: Plot the graph • Step 4 : Analysis the
• Use the scatter plot mass curve
(excel) – Depth for specific period
Mass Curve
9
– Get the rainfall intensity
8
7
Cumulative Rainfall (mm)

6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0 50 100 150 200
-1
Time (min)
• The following are the rain gauge observations
during a storm. Construct:
– (a) mass curve of precipitation,
– (b) hyetograph
Watershed Concepts
Do you know?
 Watershed Concepts

• Watershed = Catchment = Basin

• The area of land that drains water, sediment and
dissolved materials to a common outlet.
• Watersheds are separated by divides
• Can be any size, from a few acres to hundreds of
square miles
• Sub-watershed = watershed within a watershed
 Watershed Concepts

• Water reaches the earth’s surface as rain and snow. A

portion of the water falling on land seeps into the soil
or flows over the surface before entering streams
and lakes.
• The land area that supplies water to a particular river
or lake is called a watershed.
• We manage watersheds and the water they produce
to provide for agriculture, human consumption,
industry, flood control and recreation.
 Watershed Concepts

• The watershed is the basic unit used in most

hydrologic calculations relating to the water balance
or computation of rainfall-runoff
• Watershed boundary defines a contiguous area,
such that the net rainfall or runoff over that area
will contribute to the outlet
• A watershed boundary can be drawn from a
topographic map, and runoff will travel from higher
to lower elevation in a direction perpendicular to
the elevation contour
• Watershed are often characterized by one main
channel and by tributaries that drain into a main
channel at one or more confluence points
• One important aspect of hydrologic modeling is the
estimation of the total precipitation and its
distribution within a watershed. This problem is
commonly referred to as “areal estimation of
precipitation”
• Just as a city, county or state has boundaries, so does
a watershed.
• We define a watershed as the land that contributes
water to a given site.
• A watershed is the area of land where all of the
water that falls in it and drains off of it goes into the
same place.
• A watershed is a basin-like landform defined by
highpoints and ridgelines that descend into lower
elevations and stream valleys
• Watersheds can be as small as a footprint or large
enough to encompass all the land that drains water
into rivers
• Other terms that are used to describe a watershed
are drainage basin, catchment, catchment area,
catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water
basin
 Important watershed parameter

• Drainage area A, since its reflects the volume of

water that can be generated from rainfall.
• Channel Slope S or watershed slope So which
reflects the rate of change of elevation with distance
along the main channel or within and overland flow
area.
• Soil type in a watershed are critical, as they
determine infiltration rates that can occur for the
area
 Important watershed parameter

• Land use and land cover, in the form of parking lots

and urban development, can have profound effects
on watershed response.
• Main channel and tributary characteristics can
effect streamflow response in a variety of ways.
• Point rainfall—It is the rainfall at a single station. For
small areas less than 50 km2, point rainfall may be
taken as the average depth over the area.
• In large areas, there will be a network of rain-gauge
stations.
• As the rainfall over a large area is not uniform, the
average depth of rainfall over the area is determined
by one of the three methods
Watershed Distribution = mean areal depth of
precipitation (Pave)

A1

A
A3

A2

A4
 Watershed Distribution = mean areal depth of
precipitation (Pave)

• Three basic methods exist to derive averaged value

from point rainfall data

1. The arithmetic mean

2. Thiessen Polygon method

3. Isohyetal method
The arithmetic mean

• The simplest method is arithmetic mean of points

rainfalls from available gages.
• This method is satisfactory if the gages are
uniformly distributed and individual variations are
not far from the mean rainfall
• The method is not particularly accurate for larger
areas where rainfall distribution is variable
• This method will give reasonable results if the
variability among Pi is not too large.
• A ”rule of thumb” is that if the standard deviation of
Pi is < 10% of avg P , then the arithmetic average will
be an accurate estimator of avg P .
 The arithmetic mean

0.55  0.87  5.4  2.33  1.89

Arithmetic _ Distribution 
5
= ???
 Thiessen Polygon Method

• The Theissen polygon method assumes that each

precipitation gage does not get the same weight as
in the arithmetic method.
• Thiessen polygons are polygons whose boundaries
define the area that is closest to each point relative
to all other points.
• They are mathematically defined by the
perpendicular bisectors of the lines between all
points
 Thiessen Polygon Method
• In the Thiessen polygon method, the watershed is
divided into polygons with the rain gauge in the
middle of each polygon assumed to be
representative for the rainfall on the area of land
included in its polygon.
• These polygons are made by drawing lines between
gauges, then making perpendicular bisectors of
those lines form the polygons.
 Thiessen Polygon Method

• The Thiessen Polygon method allows for areal

weighting of rainfall from each gage.
• Such a polygon is the locus of point closer to the
given gage than to any other.
 Thiessen Polygon Technique

1. Draw the connecting lines between stations

located on a map.
2. Draw the perpendicular bisector to form polygon
around each gage.
3. The ratio of the area of each polygon Ai within the
watershed boundary of the total area AT is used to
weight each station’s rainfall
 Calculation of weighted average
precipitation

1 Area of each polygon = Ai

Area of sub watershed Ai
2 Ratio of Area  
Area of total watershed AT

Ai
3 Weighted average precipitation  Pi *
AT
 Thiessen Polygon Technique
2.0mm

1.8mm

1.2mm

1.0mm
 Then ..
2.0mm

1.8mm

1.2mm

1.0mm
 Finally ..
2.0mm

1.8mm

1.2mm

1.0mm
Precipitationi Area of each Ratio of Area Weighted average
(mm) polygon , (km2) precipitation
Ai (km)
(km2) Ai
Ai
AT Pi *
AT
2.0 1.5 0.064 0.13
1.8 7.2 0.305 0.55
1.2 5.1 0.216 0.26
1.0 9.8 0.415 0.42
∑ 23.6 1.000 1.35
Activities in class
ACTIVITIES ANSWER
Try this 
RESULT
TASK 1
 Isohyetal

• Isohyetal line (isohyet) = A line drawn on a map or

chart joining points that receive the same amount
of precipitation.
• Isohyetal line (isohyet) is a graphical technique
which involves drawing estimated lines of equal
rainfall over an area based on point measurements.
• Historical data indicates that spatial distribution of
precipitation across the county is not uniform
during storm events.
• To account for this spatial variability of rainfall,
hydrologist developed rainfall Isohyetal maps
• Detailed rain gage analysis was performed to
determine the various rainfall depth and frequency
relationships
Isohyetal analysis methodology
Thank You 
 Reference tables
Table 1 : The sixteen characters that define absolute level
Code A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Table 2: Forty nine characters that define the deviation encoding

First Range Bin

Deviation
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
-3 ! [ a b c ] @
-2 / d e f g h \
-1 i j k < l m n
Second
0 o p - . + q r
Range Bin
1 s t u > v w x
2 ( y S T U V )
3 $ { W X Y } &
 Rain table
Assumed Rain Rate (mm/hr)
Sig. Strength (dBZ)
Video level
(dBZ = 10 log (Z)) (Z=200R1.6)
15 64.0 364.6
14 61.0 236.8
13 58.0 153.8
12 55.0 99.9
11 52.0 64.8
10 49.0 42.1
9 46.0 27.3
8 43.0 17.8
7 40.0 11.5
6 37.0 7.5
5 34.0 4.9
4 31.0 3.2
3 28.0 2.1
2 23.0 1.0
1 11.8 0.2