CVEN9625 – Fundamentals of Water Engineering

Catchments

Dr Kefeng Zhang
 This topic
• What is a catchment? How can you delineate a catchment using a topographic map?
• What is a DEM? How do you use DEMs to delineate a catchment?
• What is “water-balance”? What forms the main inputs and outputs to a catchment? How can
you estimate “storage” on a catchment by performing a water balance?
• Why do you need catchment averaged rainfall?
• How do you form Theissen Polygons? What are the advantages of the Theissen method for
estimating the catchment averaged rainfall over the Arithmetic Mean?
• What are “Isohyets”? How do you form Isohyets? How do you use Isohyets to estimate the
catchment averaged rainfall?
• What is SILO? What are some of the difficulties in using SILO rainfall products for hydrologic
studies?
 Catchment delineation algorithms
The physical rules
o Water flows in the direction of the terrain steepest downhill
slope.
o Streamlines are orthogonal to the elevation contour lines.
o Drainage divides are found along the highest points of the
terrain.
o Streamlines do not flow towards drainage divides, and do not
intersect them
• Maclaughlin catchment – 3 D image
• Maclaughlin catchment – 3 D image (With catchment Boundary)
• Maclaughlin catchment – 3 D image (With catchment Boundary & River network)
• Maclaughlin catchment – 3 D image (With catchment Boundary & 50 m contour)
• Cross section line at extreme upper part of catchment and its cross section
 DEM (Digital Elevation Models)
• It all boils down to knowing the elevation everywhere -> need
for DEMs

• DEMs are 2D grids storing the elevation at each location

• They store the same information as contour but in a grid form,

more amenable for algorithms to process
 Hydrologic Functions
• Principle: assigns a flow direction code
to each cell, based on the steepest
downhill slope as defined by the DEM.
• 8 possible direction codes indicating the
cells towards which the water flows.
• Does not work for depressions. These
have to be filled beforehand.
• Approximate when coarse DEM.
Hydrologic Functions
Flow network and accumulation
Find the stream network
Catchments delineation
Water balance
 Water Balance
Time (h) Rainfall (mm) Discharge (m3s-1)
1 10 2.5
2 15 3.0
3 0 4.0
What’s the area of the
4 0 4.5
catchment?
5 0 4.0
6 0 3.0
7 0 2.0
8 0 1.0
9 0 0.5
10 0 0.0
 How to determine the area of a catchment?

• Total volume of rain: V=A R

• A: catchment area, R=rainfall amount
• => A=V/R
• Watch out for units conversions!
• Don’t forget the time units!
Total rainfall (mm) = 10+15=25mm
Total discharge (m3) = 3600(2.5+3+4+ 4.5+4+ 3+
2+ 1+ 0.5)
= 88200m3
As the volume of water that falls has to equal the
discharge, the area can be estimated as:
Catchment area (m2) = Total volume / total rainfall
= 88200/(2510-3)
= 3528103 m2
= 3.528 km2
Time (h) Rainfall (mm) Discharge (m3s-1)
0.5 10 2.5
1 15 3.0
1.5 0 4.0
2 0 4.5
2.5 0 4.0
3 0 3.0
3.5 0 2.0
4 0 1.0
4.5 0 0.5
5 0 0.0
Total rainfall (mm) = (10*0.5)+(15*0.5)=12.5mm

Total discharge (m3) = 3600 [ (2.5*0.5) + (3*0.5) +

(4*0.5) + (4.5*0.5) + (4*0.5) + (3*0.5) + (2*0.5) +
(1*0.5) + (0.5*0.5) ]
= 44100m3
As the volume of water that falls has to equal the
discharge, the area can be estimated as:
Catchment area (m2) = Total volume / total rainfall
= 44100/(12.510-3)
= 3528103 m2
= 3.528 km2 SAME!
 Estimating catchment average rainfall
• (1) Arithmetic mean

= 22.1mm.
 Estimating catchment average rainfall
• (2) Thiessen method
1. Connect nearby stations with lines (figure 5a).
2. Draw perpendicular bisectors on the lines drawn in
the previous step (figure 5b).
3. Complete the polygon by marking clearly all the
edges. Note that the polygons cannot extend
beyond the catchment boundary (figure 5c).
4. Measure the area associated with each polygon.
5. Estimate the Thiessen Averaged rainfall as:
 Estimating catchment average rainfall
• (3) Isohyetal method
Isohyetal method
 Isohyetal method
1. Draw lines of equal rainfall (these lines are called
isohyets).
2. Measure the area enclosed by two adjacent
isohyets. Call this area Aj where j=1…M.
3. Estimate the isohyetal method catchment averaged
rainfall as:

Pj-1 and Pj are the two isohyets enclosing area Aj, and M
is the total number of isohyets covering the catchment.