CE303 Engineering Hydrology

Unit Hydrograph
Course Instructor
Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Email: vvamsikr@nitw.ac.in
Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna
Department of Civil Engineering
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Introduction
• The runoff estimation methods provide information about the magnitude of the
excess rainfall from the storm events.
• For many of the applications the temporal distribution of the runoff is
important.
• A hydrograph is a graph or plot that shows the rate of water flow in relation to
the time.
• Sherman in 1932 proposed the concept of unit hydrograph – “if a given one
day rainfall produces 1 inch depth of runoff over the given drainage area, the
hydrograph showing the rates at which the runoff occurred can be considered
a unit graph for that watershed”

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 2
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Unit Hydrograph

• Unit hydrograph is defined as a

direct runoff hydrograph resulting
from unit depth of excess rainfall
generated uniformly over the
drainage area at a constant rate for
an effective duration.
• A unit hydrograph is a simple linear
model that can be used to derive
the hydrograph resulting from any
amount of excess rainfall.

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 3
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Assumptions
• The excess rainfall has constant intensity within the effective duration.
• The excess rainfall is uniformly distributed throughout the whole drainage
area.
• The base time of the DRH resulting from an excess rainfall of a given duration
is constant.
• The ordinates of all DRH’s of a common base time are directly proportional to
the total amount of direct runoff represented by each hydrograph.
• For a given watershed, the hydrograph resulting from a given excess rainfall
reflects the unchanging characteristics of the watershed.

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 4
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Applications of Unit Hydrograph
• The direct runoff hydrograph can be calculated from the unit hydrograph due
to a given storm.
• The convolution equation is used for computation of direct runoff given excess
rainfall and unit hydrograph.
𝑛≤𝑀

𝑄𝑛 = ෍ 𝑃𝑚 𝑈𝑛−𝑚+1
𝑚=1

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 5
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Example
Given below are the ordinates of a 6-h unit hydrograph for a catchment.
Calculate the ordinates of the DRH due to a rainfall excess of a 3.5 cm
occurring in 6h.
Time (h) 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42

UH
Ordinate 0 25 50 85 125 160 185 160 110 60 36 25 16 8 0
(m3/s)

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 6
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Example
Given below are the ordinates of a 6-h unit hydrograph for a catchment.
Calculate the ordinates of the DRH due to a rainfall excess of a 3.5 cm
occurring in 6h.
Time (h) 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42

UH
Ordinate 0 25 50 85 125 160 185 160 110 60 36 25 16 8 0
(m3/s)

Ordinate
of DRH
(m3/s) 0 87.5 175 297.5 437.5 560 647.5 560 385 210 126 87.5 56 28 0
(row 2) X
3.5

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 7
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Derivation of DRH for complex storm

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 8
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Example
Given below are the ordinates of a 6-h unit hydrograph for a catchment.
Calculate the ordinates of the DRH due to two consecutive storms of 6 h
duration of rainfall excess of 3.5 cm and 2 cm. The 2 cm excess rainfall follows
the 3.5 cm excess rainfall storm.

Time (h) 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42

UH
Ordinate 0 25 50 85 125 160 185 160 110 60 36 25 16 8 0
(m3/s)

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 9
National Institute of Technology Warangal
 Example
Time (h) 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42

UH Ordinate
0 25 50 85 125 160 185 160 110 60 36 25 16 8 0
(m3/s)

Ordinate of
DRH (m3/s)
0 87.5 175 297.5 437.5 560 647.5 560 385 210 126 87.5 56 28 0
(row 2) X
3.5

The second storm of 2 cm rainfall excess occurs immediately after the first storm. The DRH for the second storm
will be lagged by 6 hours.

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 10
National Institute of Technology Warangal
 Example
Time (h) 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48

UH
Ordinate 0 25 50 85 125 160 185 160 110 60 36 25 16 8 0 0 0
(m3/s)

Ordinate
of 3.5 cm
DRH (m3/s) 0 87.5 175 297.5 437.5 560 647.5 560 385 210 126 87.5 56 28 0 0 0
(row 2) X
3.5
Ordinate
of 2 cm
0 0 0 50 100 170 250 320 370 320 220 120 72 50 32 16 0
DRH (m3/s)
(row 2) X 2

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 11
National Institute of Technology Warangal
 Example
Time (h) 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48

UH
Ordinate 0 25 50 85 125 160 185 160 110 60 36 25 16 8 0 0 0
(m3/s)

Ordinate
of first 0 87.5 175 297.5 437.5 560 647.5 560 385 210 126 87.5 56 28 0 0 0
storm

Ordinate
of second 0 0 0 50 100 170 250 320 370 320 220 120 72 50 32 16 0
storm

Ordinate
of complex 0 87.5 175 347.5 537.5 730 897.5 880 755 530 346 207.5 128 78 32 16 0
storm

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 12
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Derivation of Unit Hydrograph
• The reverse process, called deconvolution is used for deriving the unit
hydrograph.
Selection of Storms
• Storms occurring individually, that is simple storm structure.
• Storms having uniform distribution of rainfall throughout the period of rainfall
excess.
• Storms having uniform spatial distribution over the entire watershed.

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 13
National Institute of Technology Warangal
Problem
Following are the ordinates of storm hydrograph of a river draining, a catchment
area of 423 sq.km, due to a 6-h isolated storm. Derive the ordinates of a 6-h UH
for the catchment. Assume a constant base flow as 10 m3/s and rainfall excess
is for 6 hours.
Time from
the start of -6 0 6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48 54 60 66 72 78 84 90 96 102
storm (h)
Discharge
10 10 30 88 116 103 85 71 59 48 39 32 26 22 18 15 13 12 12
(m3/s)

Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna

Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 14
National Institute of Technology Warangal
 6-h UH =
Problem Time
(h)
Q(m^3/
s)
Base
Flow
DRH DRH/ ER
depth
-6 10 10 0 0.0
0 10 10 0 0.0
• Volume of DRH = 60*60*6*(Sum of 6 30 10 20 6.7
DRH ordinates) 12 87.5 10 77.5 25.8
18 115.5 10 105.5 35.2
• = 60*60*6*615 =13.2 Mm3 24 102.5 10 92.5 30.8
30 85 10 75 25.0
• Drainage Area = 423 km2 = 423 36 71 10 61 20.3
Mm2 42 59 10 49 16.3
48 47.5 10 37.5 12.5
• Runoff depth = ER depth = 54 39 10 29 9.7
13.2/423 = 0.0312 m = 3.12 cm 60 31.5 10 21.5 7.2
66 26 10 16 5.3
72 21.5 10 11.5 3.8
78 17.5 10 7.5 2.5
84 15 10 5 1.7
90 12.5 10 2.5 0.8
96 12 10 2 0.7
Dr. V. Vamsi Krishna 102 12 10 2 0.7
Department of Civil Engineering CE303 Engineering Hydrology 30-10-2022 15
National Institute of Technology Warangal