Faculty of Engineering & Technology

Department of Civil with Environmental Engineering

CIV3113 – Engineering Hydrology Lecture Notes – Week 1
Lecturer: S. Eastman

Introduction
According to Sabramanya (2008) hydrology means the science of water. It is the science that deals
with the occurrence, circulation, and distribution of water of the earth and earth’s atmosphere. As
a branch of science, it is concerned with water in streams and lakes, rainfall and snowfall, snow
and ice on land and water occurring below the earth’s surface in the pores of the soil and rocks. It
is a broad subject and is sometimes classified as:

1. Scientific Hydrology – the study which is concerned chiefly with academic aspects.
2. Engineering of applied hydrology – a study concerned with engineering applications

Engineering hydrology deals with

(i) Estimation of water resources

(ii) The study of processes such as precipitation, runoff, evapotranspiration, and their
interaction
(iii) the study of problems such as floods and droughts, and strategies to combat them.

Hydrological Cycle

Hydrological cycle is also known as the “water cycle” it is the normal water recycling system on
Earth (Fig. 1). Due to solar radiation, water evaporates, generally from the sea, lakes, etc. Water
also evaporates from plant leaves through the mechanism of transpiration. As it rises in the
atmosphere, it is being cooled, condensed, and returned to the land and the sea as precipitation.
Precipitation falls on the earth as surface water and shapes the surface, creating thus streams of
water that result in lakes and rivers. A part of the water precipitating penetrates the ground and
moves downward through the incisions, forming aquifers. Finally, a part of the surface
and underground water leads to sea. During this trip, water is converted in all phases: gas, liquid,
and solid. (Inglezakis & Menegaki, 2016).

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 Figure 1: Hydrological Cycle (Source: Wilson, 1990)
The hydrological cycle is dependent on various factors and is equally affected by oceans and land
surfaces. In the case of the land surface, vegetation plays a vital role in the maintenance of the
hydrologic budget (Inglezakis & Menegaki, 2016 as cited in Pielke and Niyogi, 2009). The
presence of vegetation increases the capacity of the land surface to retain moisture. Precipitation
is then intercepted by plants and directly evaporated when captured by the canopy. The plants
themselves transpire and aid in the creation of a major amount of water
vapor through evapotranspiration processes. The surface runoff, in the case of bare ground, is
much greater than in vegetated lands. As plants dominate the processes of energy, water vapor,
and carbon exchange, their presence is critical to the functioning of the hydrological cycle.

The hydrological cycle is intimately linked with changes in the atmospheric temperature and
radiation balance. Warming of the climate system in recent decades is unequivocal, as it is now
evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread
melting of snow and ice, and rising of the sea level globally.

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It is expected that the hydrological cycle will be affected from global warming due to the
enhanced greenhouse effect. The hydrological cycle may be strengthened with more precipitation
and more evaporation, but the extra precipitation will be unequally distributed around the globe.
It is expected that some areas of the world may see significant reductions in precipitation or even
more major variations in the timing of wet and dry seasons. Many aspects of the economy,
environment, and society are dependent upon water resources, and changes in the hydrological
resource base have the potential to severely impact upon environmental quality, economic
development, and social well-being.

The Global Water Cycle

The hydrological cycle describes the perpetual flux and exchange of water between different
global reservoirs: the oceans, atmosphere, land surface, soils, groundwater systems, and the solid
Earth (Figure 2). Most of the world’s water – approximately 96.3% – is in the world’s oceans,
where water molecules have an average residence time of about 3300 years. Glaciers and ice sheets
lock up more than half of the remaining water (Table 1), with 90% of this stored in the Antarctic
Ice Sheet. Most of what remains lies below the surface, in groundwater aquifers, where vast
reserves of water are saline or difficult to access.

Figure 2. The global water inventory. (Source: Inglezakis & Menegaki, 2016)

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Table 1. The global water inventory (km3) (Source: Inglezakis & Menegaki, 2016)

Reservoir Size (km3) World water (%) Freshwater (%)

All Surface

Oceans1 1 285 400 000 96.30 − −

Ice Sheets2 25 470 000 1.91 − −

Glaciers2 270 000 0.02 − −

Permafrost3 22 000 0.002 − −

Groundwater4 23 400 000 1.75 − −

Fresh 10 530 000 0.79 98.85

Lakes 176 400 0.01 − −

Fresh 91 000 0.007 0.85 74.5

Rivers 2120 0.0002 0.02 1.7

Soil water 16 500 0.001 0.15 13.5

Wetlands 11 470 0.001 0.11 9.4

Biosphere 1120 0.0001 0.01 0.9

Atmosphere5 12 700 0.001 − −

Surface freshwater 122 210 0.01 − 100.0

Total freshwater 10 652 210 0.80 100.00 −

Global total 1 334 782 310 100.00 − −

Freshwater in circulation, on which ecosystems and society so critically depend, therefore makes
up only a tiny fraction of Earth’s total water supply. Surface water constitutes only 0.02% of the

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global inventory, distributed between rivers, lakes, wetlands, soils, and the biosphere. The United
Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) estimates the global, accessible freshwater supply to be
about 200 000 km3. This equates to about 29 million liters of water for each person on the planet.
Global water supplies are bountiful, though not easily accessed or equitably distributed.

Fluxes of water between reservoirs

Fluxes of water between reservoirs are indicated in Figure 2. There are high rates of turnover in
the atmosphere, biosphere, soils, and rivers; the average lifetime of a water molecule in the
atmosphere is 9.2 days, and considerably less than this in the world’s rain belts. Once on the land
surface, water can be stored for extended periods in soils, lakes, groundwater aquifers, vegetation,
and seasonal snowpacks. On an annual basis, however, discharge from the world’s rivers is in
near-equilibrium with global precipitation, returning what the ocean gives up through evaporation.

Figure 3. The global water cycle, with fluxes in 1012 m3 yr− 1 (Source: Inglezakis & Menegaki,
2016)

Evaporation is the phase change of water from liquid to vapor, driven primarily by energy from
solar radiation. Water in the atmosphere has in fact been referred to as ‘liquid sunlight,’ as the
latent energy stored in water vapor and released during condensation accounts for a large transfer
of energy from tropical and subtropical regions (where most evaporation occurs) to higher

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latitudes. Transpiration is the release of water vapor to the atmosphere during photosynthetic
activity in plants. Water is drawn into vegetation from the soil and water vapor is diffused to the
atmosphere through plant stomata. This is costly for the plant; roughly 98% of water transpires to
the atmosphere rather than being used for photosynthesis or plant cellular growth (Baldocchi et
al., 1987), but it is an unavoidable consequence of opening up stomata to take in CO2 during
photosynthesis. Solar radiation again provides the main source of energy driving the phase change
in transpiration. Together, evaporation and transpiration release about 495x1012 m3to the
atmosphere each year, with 86% of this derived from ocean evaporation (Figure 3). Of the 71x1012
m3 derived from land, roughly 30% is due to transpiration and 70% is from direct evaporation of
lakes, wetlands, and soil water. Changing water levels in evaporation pans provide direct
measurements of evaporation rates, or natural water bodies can provide similar inferences. It is
generally difficult to measure transpiration or larger-scale evaporation rates, however (e.g., over
the ocean), so these tend to be inferred from water balance (for instance, changes in soi lmoisture
or atmospheric humidity). Empirical formulae have also been developed to estimate potential
evapotranspiration as afunction of vegetation type and atmospheric conditions, but these are
approximate as actual evapotranspiration rates depend on the availability of soil moisture and the
life cycle of the plant .

Precipitation

About 78% of global precipitation falls over the oceans, with the remaining 22% distributed
unevenly over the landscape. Watervapor is transported in the atmosphere, with roughly
39x1012m3 advected inland from the oceans each year. The additional 71x1012 m3from
evapotranspiration over land gives a total atmospheric water volume of 110x1012 m3 that falls as
precipitationover the continents each year. When averaged over Earth’s land mass, this equates to
an average terrestrial precipitation rate of 740 mm/yr. Condensation of water vapor occurs when
air masses are cooled enough to become saturated, inducing cloud development. Precipitation can
follow where there is enough moisture and cloud droplets grow to a large enough mass to overcome
updrafts and air resistance and fall to the ground as hydrometeors. In-cloud processes that produce
precipitation can be very complex.

The main ways to cool an air mass and wring out moisture involve four different mechanisms:

(i) orographic uplift (forced uplift over mountain ranges),

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 (ii) (ii) frontal uplift where air masses collide, particularly along the polar front and in
mid-latitude cyclones,
(iii) (iii) isobaric cooling as air masses travel inland or to higher latitudes, and
(iv) (iv) adiabatic cooling during convection (buoyancy-driven uplift).

The windward sides of mountain ranges receive high precipitation totals, particularly where
mountains are parallel to coastlines and intersect incoming maritime air masses (e.g., coastal
Norway, New Zealand, western Canada).

Hot, humid, and unstable air in the tropics givesrise to high amounts of convective precipitation.
Regions of the world with high annual precipitation totals typically experience one or more of
these conditions. Conversely,stable air masses in polar regions and in the subtropical desert belts
are associated with low precipitation totals, particularly in interior continental regions where
moisture sources are limited.

Processes in a distributed hydrological model

Figure 4: Example of the processes considered in a distributed hydrological model, including 3D

water fluxes in the groundwater and surface systems, a moving water table, a treatment of

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vegetation (canopy interception, transpiration), and exchanges with the atmosphere (precipitation,
evapotranspiration).

Hydrological models are used to simulate the processes and exchanges of water within a catchment
or, in the case of global climate models, over the land surface on a continental scale. Catchment-
scale models provide guidance to water resource management, hydroelectric power production,
flood forecasts, and numerous other applications. Figure 3 depicts the typical components of a
distributed hydrological model, which evaluates water fluxes, storage, and phase changes within a
three-dimensional representation of the landscape and the subsurface. The subsurface is typically
divided into the root zone, where vegetation takes up water and soil water is subject to evaporation,
the underlying unsaturated zone, and the saturated groundwater system that lies beneath. The
‘water table’ is the horizon separating the unsaturated and groundwater zones. Exchanges of
moisture and energy with the atmosphere can be prescribed (i.e., assigning a certain amount of
precipitation and sunlight according to observations, along with other meteorological conditions
that matter for evapotranspiration (wind, humidity, etc.)). Alternatively, hydrological models can
be coupled with atmospheric models in an Earth system modeling framework, where land surface
feedbacks on the atmosphere and details of surface energy balance, moisture fluxes, etc., are
explicitly included.

Catchment Area

The area of land draining into a stream or water course at a particular location is known as the
catchment area. It is also called a drainage area or drainage basin. In the USA, it is known as a
watershed. A catchment area is divided from its neighboring areas by a ridge called a divide. The
areal extent of the catchment area is obtained by tracing the ridge on a topographic map to delineate
the catchment and measuring the area using a planimeter. It is normal to assume the groundwater
divide to coincide with the surface divide.

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Figure 5: Schematic Sketch of Catchment of River A at Station M

Applications of Hydrology in Engineering

Hydrology finds its greatest application in the design and operation of water resources engineering
projects, such as those for irrigation, water supply, flood control and navigation. In all these
projects, hydrological investigations for the proper assessment of the following are necessary:

1. The capacity of the storage structures such as reservoirs.

2. The magnitude of the flood flows to enable safe disposal of the excess flow
3. The minimum flow and quantity of flow available at various seasons.
4. The interaction of the flood wave and hydraulic structures, such as levees, reservoirs,
barrages, and bridges

The hydrological study of a project should precede structural and other detailed design studies. It
involves the collection of relevant data and analysis of the data by applying principles and theories
of hydrology to seek solutions to practical problems.

Many important projects in the past have failed due to improper assessment of hydrological factors.
Some typical failure of hydraulic structures are (i) overtopping and consequent failure of earthen
dams due to insufficient spillway capacity,(ii) failure of bridges and culverts due to excess flood
flow and (iii) inability of large reservoirs to fill up with water due to overestimation of stream
flow.

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Data Required by Hydrologist in studies
• Weather records – temperature, humidity, and wind velocity
• Precipitation data
• Stream flow records
• Evaporation and evapotranspiration data
• Infiltration characteristics of the study area
• Soils of the area
• Land use and land cover
• Groundwater Characteristics
• Physical and geological characteristics of the area
• Water quality data

Meteorological Data
Temperature
Air temperature is recorded by thermometers housed in open louvred boxes, known as Stevenson
screens, about 1.25 m above ground. Protection is necessary from precipitation and the direct rays
of the sun. Many temperature observations are made using maximum and minimum thermometers.
These records, by indices, the maximum and minimum temperatures experienced since the
instrument was last set. The daily variation in temperature varies from a minimum around sunrise,
to a maximum from 1/2 to 3 hours after the sun has reached its zenith, after which there is a
continual fall through the night to sunrise again. The mean daily temperature is the average of the
maximum and minimum and is normally within a degree of the true average as continuously
recorded. Temperature is measured in degrees Celsius.

Vertical temperature gradient.

The rate of change of temperature in the atmosphere with height is called the lapse rate. Its mean
value is 6.5 ° C per 1000 m height increase. This rate is subject to variation, particularly near the
surface, which can become very warm by day, giving a higher lapse rate, and cool by night, giving
a lower lapse rate. The cooling of the earth, by outward radiation, on clear nights can be such that
a temperature inversion occurs, with warmer air overlying the surface layer.

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As altitude increases, barometric pressure decreases so that a unit mass of air occupies greater
volume the higher it rises. The temperature change due to this decompression is about 10 °C per
1000 m if the air is dry. This is the dry-adiabatic lapse rate. If the air is moist, then as it is lifted,
expanding and cooling, its water vapour content condenses. This releases latent heat of
condensation, which prevents the air mass cooling as fast as dry air. The resulting saturated-
adiabatic lapse rate is therefore lower, at about 5·6°C per 1000 m in the lower altitude.

Distribution of temperature.

Generally, the nearer to the equator a place is, the warmer that place is. The effects of the different
specific heats of earth and water, the patterns of oceanic and atmospheric currents, the seasons of
the year, the topography, vegetation, and altitude all tend to vary this general rule, and all need
consideration.

Radiation

Most meteorological recording stations are equipped with radiometers to measure both incoming
short-wave radiation from sun and sky, and net radiation, which is the algebraic sum of all
incoming radiation and the reflected short-wave and long-wave radiation from the earth's surface.

Wind

Wind speed and direction are measured by anemometer and wind vane respectively. The
conventional anemometer is the cup anemometer formed by a circlet of three (sometimes four)
cups rotating around a vertical axis. The speed of rotation measures the wind speed and the total
revolutions around the axis gives a measure of wind run, the distance a particular parcel of air
travels in a specified time. Because of the frictional effects of the ground or water surface over
which the wind is blowing, it is important to specify in any observation of wind, the height above
ground at which it was taken. An empirical relationship between wind speed and height has been
commonly used.

u/uo = (z/zo)0.15

where uo = wind speed at anemometer at height z

u = wind speed at some higher-level z.

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Precipitation

Precipitation is expressed in terms of the depth to which rainfall water could stand on an area if all
the rain were collected on it. Thus 1 cm of rainfall over a catchment area of 1 km2 represents a
volume of water equal to 104m3. In the case of snowfall, an equivalent depth of water is used as
the depth of precipitation. The precipitation is collected and measured in raingauge. Terms such
as pluviometer, ombrometer and hyetometer are als sometimes used to designate a raingauge.

A raingauge is essentailly a cylindrical vessel assembly kept in the open to collect rainfall. To
enable the catch of the raingauges to accurately represent the rainfall in the area surrounding,
standard settings are adopted. For siting a raingauge, the following considerations are important:

• The ground must be level and in the open and the instrument must present a horizontal
catch surface.
• The gauge must be set as near the ground as possible to reduce wind effects but it must be
sufficiently high enough to prevent splashing, flooding.
• The instrument must be surrounded by an open fenced area at least 5.5m x 5.5m. No object
should be nearer to the instrument than 30m or twice the height of the obstruction.

Raingauges are classified as (i) recording raingauge and (ii) non recording raingauge.

Figure 6: Nonrecording Raingauge

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Recording raingauge
Recording raingauge produces a continuous plot of rainfall against time and provide valuable
data on intensity and duration of rainfall for hydrological analysis of storms
• Tipping bucket type

It is a type of raingauge that consists of a pair of bucket arrangement, and is arranged in such a
way so that when 0.25mm of rain falls in one bucket, it tips automatically bringing the other bucket
in position. The rain collected in the tipped bucket is then collected in a can. The tipping bucket
mechanism actuates an electrically driven pen to trace the plot on the graph paper. The graph is
mounted on a clock driven drum. The collected water is then measured to collect the quantity of
water.

• Weighing bucket type

This consist of an arrangement of a bucket mounted on a weighing scale. The weight of the
bucket and its counterparts are duly recorded on a clock driven chart. Such raingauge delivers the
mass curve of rainfall i.e. plot of the cumulative vs. time.

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 • Natural siphon type

This type of raingauge is also known as the floating type raingauge. Here the rainfall is collected
by the funnel shaped collector is lead into a float chamber causing a float to rise. As the float
rises, a pen attached to the float through the lever system records the elevation of the float on a
rotating drum driven by clockwork mechanism. A siphon arrangement empties the float chamber
when the float reaches a preset maximum level.
• Telemetering raingauge

These Raingauges are of the recording type and contains electronic units to transmit the data on
rainfall on a base station both at regular intervals and on interrogation. The tipping bucket type
raingauge is suitable for this purpose. Telemetering Raingauges are suitable for collecting
rainfall data from mountainous and inaccessible areas.
Radar measurement of rainfall
The meteorological radar is a powerful instrument for measuring the areal extent, location and
movement of storms. Further, the amount of rainfall over large areas can be determined through
the radar with a great degree of accuracy.

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 References
Marshall. S., J. (2014). The Water Cycle. Elsevier. Retrieved from

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/B9780124095489090916?token=4D4284BFF0C

79298CDECB8AF276D7E7DB3C9FF6FA8D1BCCED5F8987C2DB1D66CFB765B7B

DD8B45295F0FC20184C42DDB

Wilson, E. M. (1990). Engineering Hydrology. (4th ed.), Longman

Subramanya. K. (2008). Engineering Hydrology. (3rd ed.). McGraw Hill Publishing

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/hydrological-cycle

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