Unit-I

Introduction to engineering hydrology and it’s applications,

Hydrologic cycle, types and forms of precipitation, rainfall
measurement, types of rain gauges, computation of average
rainfall over a basin, processing of rainfall data – Adjustment of
record – Rainfall Double Mass Curve.
Runoff – Factors affecting Runoff, Runoff over a Catchment –
Empirical and Rational Formulae.
Abstraction from rainfall – evaporation, factors affecting
evaporation, measurement of evaporation – Evapotranspiration –
Penman and Blaney & Criddle Methods
Infiltration, factors affecting infiltration, measurement of
infiltration, infiltration indices.
Hyetograph
• It is a plot of rainfall intensity against time interval.
• Time interval depends on the purpose (urban drainage problems
– small durations, flood flow computations from large
catchments ~ 6h).
• It can be derived from the mass curve of rainfall.
• It is represented as a bar chart.
• It is useful in developing design storms to predict extreme
floods.
• Area under a hyetograph = total precipitation received in that
time period.
Hyetograph of a storm
Presentation of Rainfall Data Mass Curve of Rainfall
• It is a plot of accumulated precipitation against time,
plotted in chronological order.
• Records of float type, weighing bucket type etc
raingauges are of this form.
• It gives information on duration and magnitude of a
storm. Intensity at various time intervals in a storm =
slope of the curve.
• It can be prepared for non-recording raingauges also if
the approximate start and end of a storm are known.
Mass curve of rainfall
Double mass curve
• Let X be the station where inconsistency in rainfall records is
observed.
• Select a group of about 5 to 10 base stations in the
neighbourhood of station X.
• Data of annual or monthly mean rainfall of station X as well as
the average rainfall of the group of base stations over a long
time period is arranged in reverse chronological order ie. the
latest record is the first entry and the oldest record is the last
entry in the list.
• Thus older records are brought to the new regime at X.
• The more homogeneous the base station records are,
the more accurate will be the corrected values at
station X.
• A change in slope is taken as significant only if it persists
for more than 5 years.
• The double mass curve technique is also useful in
checking arithmetical errors in transferring rainfall data
from one record to another.
RUNOFF