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GEO124
INLEIDING TOT MENS-OMGEWINGS-SISTEME

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS

Lesing : Opvangbiede, hidrologie en vloeding van rivierstelsels

Lecture: Drainage basins and flood hydrology
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Drainage basins

• Drainage basin - The area drained by a river and it’s

tributaries
• Watershed – boundary of drainage basins marked
by ridges

• But is it that simple? What about underlying

geology?
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Drainage basins
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Drainage basin system

• Drainage basin system is made up of inputs and outputs:

−Inputs = precipitation
−Outputs = any loss from system
• Perennial → streams that hold water throughout the year
• Intermittent → stream that holds water during wet portions of
the year
• Ephemeral → channel that holds water only during and
immediately after rain events
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Stream types

• Definitions poorly define flow regimes that occur in nature.

• Flow of 11 months a year intermittent or perennial?
• Flow 1 month a year intermittent or ephemeral?
• Hedman and Osterkamp (1982)
−Perennial → measurable discharge 80% of the time,
intermittent 10-80% of the time, and ephemeral <10% of the
time while
• Hewlett (1982) defined perennial streams as having water
present >90% of the time
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Drainage basin elements

• Precipitation
• Interception
• Evapotranspiration
• Infiltration
• Percolation
• Surface runoff
• Baseflow
• Channel flow
• Storage
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Precipitation

• Any form (liquid or solid) of water that falls from the sky
– rain, hail, snow, sleet
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Precipitation
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Precipitation
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Interception

• First raindrops don’t hit the ground – they are intercepted

− Except for fallow soil
• During short, low-intensity rainfall most doesn’t reach ground
• Evaporated
• More vegetation = more interception
• When rain > storage
− Throughfall (fall from leaves)
− Stemflow (flow down plant)
− Secondary interception
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Evapotranspiration

• 2 components
−Evaporation
• Temperature
• Wind
• Humidity dependent
−Transpiration
• Difficult to identify how much is lost to which process!
• Potential and actual is based on water availability
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Infiltration

• The movement of water from the surface into the ground

• Dependent on permeability
−Porosity
−Dependent on antecedent soil moisture
−Soil type
−Soil structure etc
• Infiltration capacity = maximum rate of infiltration
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Percolation

• Filtering of water (or any fluid) through porous material i.e. the
soil/bedrock
• Aquifers (phreatic zone) and aquicludes (vadose zone)
• Water table – responds to climatic conditions
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Percolation

http://www.artinaid.com/2013/04/types-of-aquifers/
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http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western- https://ewn.co.za/2019/04/23/in-pictures-heavy-rains-mudslides-prompt-evacuations-in-
cape/cape-nearly-knee-deep-in-rain-water-1.1562900 ec-kzn
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Water transfer

• Surface runoff
• Excess water that flows over the surface
• Base flow
• Water transferred laterally underground
• Channel flow
• Once surface flow and base flow feeds into a river channel it
becomes channel flow
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Hydrology

• The study of water

• Discharge = all water in river that is not stored or lost through
evaporation
• Measured in m3/s
•Q=AxV
Where Q = discharge
A = cross sectional area
V = water velocity
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The hydrograph
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Drainage basin controls on hydrograph

• Basin size, shape and shape

−Lag time
• Precipitation type
−Snow, intense, extended period
• Antecedent conditions
−Fire
−Temperature (crusting or high evaporation)
• Land use
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Drainage basin controls on hydrograph

• Underlying rock type

−Porous
−Pervious (water flows through cracks)
• Soil type
−Sand/clay
• Drainage density