ENGINEERING

HYDROLOGY

1 | Introduction to
Hydrology &
Weather Basics
 WATERSHED

• “A body of land bounded above by a ridge or water divide

1.3 | Philippine
and below by the level at which water drains from it.” (Bruce,
Watersheds 2017)

philippine • A high area of land where rain collects, some of it flowing

down to supply rivers, lakes, etc., at lower levels.

watersheds
• An area of land on a slope which drains its water into a stream
and its tributaries.

• It is also called as catchment area or drainage basin.

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Discuss the different definitions of

watershed according to Philippine
legislature

• Discuss the important properties

of watershed and its significance
in hydrologic analyses

• Identify the stream order using

Horton’s Law

• Draw a watershed’s boundaries

Philippine
watersheds
• According to the River Basin COntrol Office (RBCO), the
philippines has 142 critical watersheds.

• The watershed referred to under the IRR of RA 7942 is

“critical watershed,” which means a drainage area of a
river system, lake or water reservoir supporting existing
and proposed hydroelectric power, domestic water
supply, geothermal power and irrigation works that
need immediate rehabilitation and protection to
minimize soil erosion, improve water yield and prevent
possible flooding.

• PD 705 defi nes watershed as “a land area drained by a

stream or fi xed body of water and its tributaries having
a common outlet for surface run-off.” Moreover, the
same law defi nes watershed reservation as “a forest
land reservation established to protect or improve the
conditions of the water yield thereof or reduce
sedimentation.”
Watershed
Delineation
All watershed delineation means is that you’re drawing line on
a map to identify a watershed’s boundaries. These are typically
drawn on topographic maps using information from contour
lines. Contour lines are lines of equal elevation, so any point
along a given contour line is the same elevation.

INFORMATION SOURCES:
NAMRIA - National Mapping Resource Information Agency
DENR - Department of Environment and Natural Resources
Local Government

DIGITAL ELEVATION MODELS (DEM’s)

DEM’s store topographic data in the form of grid cells.
Typically, these grid cells have a resolution of 30 meters and
elevation intervals of 1 meter. Using a DEM within a
Geographic Information System (GIS), digital terrain analysis
(DTA) such as calculating slopes, fl ow lengths, and delineation
of watershed boundaries and stream networks can be
performed.
Delineation STEps
STEP 1: Mark the outlet. This is generally our point of
interest for designing a structure or monitoring
location.

STEP 2: Mark the high points adjacent to the water body.

STEP 3: Connect the marks. Always cross a contour line

at right angles (perpendicular).
watershed geomorphology:
Principal watershed
characteristics
• DRAINAGE AREA. The drainage area (A) is the probably the single
most important watershed characteristic for hydrologic design. It
refl ects the volume of water that can be generated from rainfall. It is
common in hydrologic design to assume a constant depth of rainfall
occurring uniformly over the watershed. Under this assumption, the
volume of water available for  runoff would be the product of rainfall
depth and the drainage area. Thus the drainage area is required as
input to models ranging from simple linear prediction equations to
complex computer models.
• WATERSHED LENGTH. The length (L) of a watershed is the second
watershed characteristic of interest. While the length increases as the
drainage increases, the length of a watershed is important in
hydrologic computations. Watershed length is usually defi ned as the
distance measured along the main channel from the watershed outlet
to the basin divide. Since the channel does not extend to the basin
divide, it is necessary to extend a line from the end of the channel to
the basin divide following a path where the greatest volume of water
would travel. The straight-line distance from the outlet point on the
watershed divide is not usually used to compute L because the travel
distance of fl oodwaters is conceptually the length of interest. Thus, the
length is measured along the principal fl ow path. Since it will be used
for hydrologic calculations, this length is more appropriately labeled
the hydrologic length.
WATERSHED GEOMORPHOLOGY refers to the physical
characteristics of the watershed. Certain physical properties
signifi cantly affect the characteristics of runoff and as such are of
great interest in hydrologic analyses.
• WATERSHED SLOPE. Flood magnitudes refl ect the momentum of the
runoff. Slope is an important factor in the momentum. Both watershed
and channel slope may be of interest. Watershed slope refl ects the
rate of change of elevation with respect to distance along the principal
fl ow  path. Typically, the principal fl ow path is delineated, and the
watershed slope (S) is computed as the difference in elevation (∆E)
between the end points of the principalfl ow path divided by the
hydrologic length of the fl ow path (L):
S = ∆E / L
• WATERSHED SHAPE. Basin shape is not usually used directly in
hydrologic design methods; however, parameters that refl ect basin
shape are used occasionally and have a conceptual basis. Watersheds
have an infi nite variety of shapes, and the shape supposedly refl ects
the way that runoff will “bunch up” at the outlet. A circular watershed
would result in runoff  from various parts of the watershed reaching the
outlet at the same time. An elliptical watershed having the outlet at one
end of the major axis and having the same area as the circular
watershed would cause the runoff to be spread out over time, thus
producing a smaller fl ood peak than that of the circular watershed.
• LAND USE AND SOIL CHARACTERISTICS. Land use and soil
characteristics affect both the volume and timing of runoff. During a
rainstorm, fl ow from an impervious, steeply sloped, and smooth,
surface make a little retardation and no loss to the fl ow. In comparison,
fl ow along a pervious grassy hill of the same size will produce
retardation and signifi cant loss to the fl ow due to infi ltration. A lot of
information about land use has been gathered over the years and is
available from maps or as GIS data sets. In some cases, a fi eld survey is
necessary to determine the various land uses within a watershed. Many
hydrological analyses deal with assessing the effect of land use
changes on runoff. For example, the development of a new residential
neighborhood is likely to have signifi cant impact on runoff
characteristics. Surface roughness, soil characteristics such as texture,
soil structure, soil moisture and hydrologic soil groups also affect the
runoff in various ways. For example; Soil properties affect the
infi ltration capacity. Soil particles are usually classifi ed as clay (d<0.002
mm), silt (0.002<d<0.02), or sand (d>0.02 mm). A particular soil is a
combination of clay, silt, and sand. Generally, soils with a signifi cant
portion of small particles have low infi ltration capacity, whereas sandy
soils have high infi ltration capacity.
Channel
so on. In general, an nth  order stream is a tributary formed by two or
more streams of order (n-1) and streams of lower order. For a
watershed, the principal order is defined as the order of the principal

geomorphology:
channel. The figure below gives an example of stream ordering.

• CHANNEL LENGTH. The distance measured along the main channel

from the watershed outlet to the end of the channel, which is denoted
as Lc.

• CHANNEL SLOPE. (Sc = ΔEc / Lc), where ΔEc is the difference in

elevation between the points defining the upper and lower ends of the
channel and Lc is the length of the channel between the same two
points. If the channel slope is not uniform, a weighted slope may
provide and index that better reflects the effect of slope on the
hydrologic response of the watershed.

• DRAINAGE DENSITY. (D = Lt / A).The drainage density, D, is the ratio

of the total length of streams (Lt) with in a watershed to the total area of
the watershed; thus D has units of the reciprocal of length (1/L). A high
value of the drainage density would indicate a relatively high density of
streams and thus a rapid storm response. Values typically ranges from
1.5 to 6 mi/mi2.

• HORTON’S LAWS. Horton (from Horton’s infi ltration equation fame)

developed a set of “laws” that are indicators of the geomorphological
characteristics of watershed. The stream order is a measure of the
degree of stream branching within a watershed. Each length of stream
is indicated by its order (for example, fi rst-order, second-order, etc.). A
fi rst-order stream is an unbranched tributary, a second-order stream is
a tributary formed by two or more fi rst-order streams. A third-order
stream is a tributary formed by two or more second-order streams and