Depth-Area-Duration Curves

In designing structures for water resources, one has to know the areal spread of rainfall within
watershed. However, it is often required to know the amount of high rainfall that may be expected over the
catchment. It may be observed that usually a storm event would start with a heavy downpour and may
gradually reduce as time passes. Hence, the rainfall depth is not proportional to the time duration of rainfall
observation. Similarly, rainfall over a small area may be more or less uniform. But if the area is large, then
due to the variation of rain falling in different parts, the average rainfall would be less than that recorded
over a small portion below the high rain fall occurring within the area. Due to these facts, a Depth-AreaDuration (DAD) analysis is carried out based on records of several storms on an area and, the maximum
areal precipitation for different durations corresponding to different areal extents.
Rainfall rarely occurs uniformly over a large area; variations in intensity and total depth of fall occur
from the centres to the peripheries of storms. From Fig. 2.13 it can be seen that the average depth of rainfall
decreases from the maximum as the area considered increases. The average depths of rainfall are plotted
against the areas up to the encompassing isohyets. It may be necessary in some cases to study alternative
isohyetal maps to establish maximum 1- day, 2-day, 3 day (even up to 5-day) rainfall for various sizes of
areas. If there are adequate self-recording stations, the incremental isohyetal maps can be prepared for the
selected (or standard) durations of storms, i.e., 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 42, 48 hours etc. Step-by-step procedure for
drawing DAD curves:
(i)
Determine the day of greatest average rainfall, consecutive two days of greatest average rainfall,
and like that, up to consecutive five days.
(ii)
Plot a map of maximum 1-day rainfall and construct isohyets; similarly prepare isohyetal maps
for each of 2, 3, 4 and 5-day rainfall separately.
(iii)
The isohyetal map, say, for maximum 1-day rainfall, is divided into zones to represent the
principal storm (rainfall) centres.
(iv)
Starting with the storm centre in each zone, the area enclosed by each isohyet is planimetered.
(v)
The area between the two isohyets multiplied by the average of the two isohyetal values gives the
incremental volume of rainfall.
(vi)
The incremental volume added with the previous accumulated volume gives the total volume of
rainfall.
(vii) The total volume of rainfall divided by the total area upto the encompassing isohyet gives the
average depth of rainfall over that area.
(viii) The computations are made for each zone and the zonal values are then combined for areas
enclosed by the common (or extending) isohyets.
(ix)
The highest average depths for various areas are plotted and a smooth curve is drawn. This is
DAD curve for maximum 1-day rainfall.
(x)
Similarly, DAD curves for other standard durations (of maximum 2, 3, 4 day etc. or 6, 12, 18, 24
hours etc.) of rainfall are prepared.
The result of a DAD analysis is the DAD curves which would look as shown in Figure 5.