HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

AND WATER BALANCE

Sharad K Jain
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee 1
GLOBAL WATER AVAILABILITY
 Total water on Earth is estimated at about 1340
Million Cu km
 Sufficient to cover Land area on Earth with a layer
of nearly 9.05 km deep
o 97.3% of this water is in Oceans
 Only 2.7% is freshwater, of which
o 75.0% is frozen in glaciers, etc.
o 22.6% is groundwater, some very deep
 Only about 2.4% of fresh water is utilizable by
humanity
 Surface fresh water is thus only about 0.007% of
the total
 Hydrologic Cycle
o The Hydrologic Cycle is a fundamental
concept in hydrology. It is amongst a number
of cycles known to be operating in nature,
such as the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle,
and other biogeochemical cycles.
o HC is the pathway of water as it moves in its
various phases to the atmosphere, to the
earth, over and through the land, to the ocean
and back to the atmosphere.

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 Hydrologic Cycle

• HC is composed of storages and processes that move water between

them. 4
• Sun is the prime mover of this cycle
 Components of Hydrologic Cycle
o Hydrologic cycle can be sub-divided into three major
systems:
• The oceans as a source/sink of water
• The atmosphere functioning as the carrier and
deliverer of water
• The land as the user of water

o On a global basis, the water movement is a closed

system.

o Major components of the hydrologic cycle are

precipitation interception, depression storage,
evaporation, transpiration, infiltration, percolation,
moisture storage in unsaturated zone, and runoff.
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 Systems Representation of Hydrologic
Cycle

o Precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration are principal

processes that move water among sub-systems. 6
Scales for Study of Hydrologic Cycle
From the point of view of hydrologic studies, several
scales are possible:

 Global scale (global fluxes and

global circulation patterns)

 National(water resources planning and management

/island scale
for a nation, region, or large basin)

 Catchment scale

 Watershed scale
(local issues)
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 Time scales in hydrologic cycle
Water of hydrosphere Period of renewal
World Oceans 2500 - 4000 years
Ground water Weeks to 1000s years
Polar ice 9700 years
Mountain glaciers 1600 years
Ground ice of the 10000 years
permafrost zone
Lakes 1 to 10 years
Bogs 5 years
Soil moisture 2 weeks to several years
Channel network A few weeks
Atmospheric moisture 8 days
Biological water Several hours to 1 week
Retention (residence time) = storage volume/ rate of flow in or out.
Renewal time depends on size also. 8
 Time scales in hydrologic cycle
• Time required for movement of water through various
components of HC varies considerably.

• Velocity of streamflow is much higher compared to the

velocity of ground water.

• Time scale of a study could be a storm lasting for a few

hours to analysis of a large basin spanning many years.

• Time step size for an analysis depends upon purpose of

study, availability of data, and how detailed it is?

• Time step should be sufficiently small so that variations

in the processes can be captured in sufficient details;
should not be too small to put undue burden on data
collection and computational efforts.

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 Hydrologic cycle - components
o HC is a set of storages and processes that move
water among these storages.
o HC can be seen as a perpetual distillation and
pumping system.
o Exchange of water among oceans, land, and
atmosphere is called ‘the turnover’.
o Water is excellent solvent: when it flows on Earth,
many impurities are mixed and water quality
degrades. Chemistry is important part of HC.
o HC is integrating process for fluxes of water, energy,
and chemical elements.

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 Atmospheric Component - Precipitation
o It is the most important atmospheric component.
o Precipitation types: rain, freezing rain, snow, ice
pellets, snow pellets, fog, dew, mist, and hail.

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 Surface Components of Hydrologic Cycle --
Evaporation and Transpiration
o Evap is transfer of water from liquid to vapor state.
o Oceans contribute about 86% of global evaporation
that lowers oceanic temperature through
evaporative cooling.

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 Surface Components of Hydrologic Cycle
-- Evaporation and Transpiration
o Transpiration is loss of water from stomatal
openings in leaves of plants.
o Evaporation + transpiration = evapotranspiration
(ET).
o ET varies according to type of vegetation.
o ET is difficult to measure partly because it is not
visible.

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 Surface Components of Hydrologic Cycle
-- Infiltration
o A portion of ppt reaching Earth's surface seeps in
through infiltration  transition from surface water
to groundwater.
o Infiltrated water is useful for plant growth.
o Water that does not seep in soil, collects and moves
across surface as runoff.

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 Surface Components of Hydrologic Cycle
-- Ground Water
o Ground water is water contained in zone below
ground that is permanently saturated.
o Nearly 97 % of world's potable water comes from
GW which is important and sometimes only source
for irrigation.

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 Surface Components of Hydrologic Cycle
-- Overland and Channel Flow
o Water that doesn't infiltrate or evaporate flows on
Earth surface as runoff.
o Flow of water through a river channel is commonly
called stream/river flow or discharge.

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 Importance of components of hydrologic
cycle
o Relative importance of components of HC depends
on time and space scales.
o During a storm at short time and space scales,
dominant components are precipitation, infiltration
and overland flow; evaporation and interception are
small.
o Over annual scale for a large arid region, ET becomes
dominant.
o Over annual scale for a large humid region, ET and
streamflow become dominant.
o Complexities in modeling depends upon time and
space scales.

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 Influence of Human Activities
o Watersheds are subjected to many types of changes,
major or minor, natural or due to human activities.
o Changes can be point or non-point changes.

Effects of Agricultural Changes

o A land area that was earlier forested or barren may
be converted to cultivated – increased ET, less
runoff, changes in water quality.

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 Influence of Human Activities
Urbanization
o Urbanization: lands that were under forests,
agriculture or barren are transformed into built
areas. Houses, roads, parks, parking lots, sewers,
etc. are constructed.

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 Biogeochemical Cycles
• Pathways by which a chemical substance is turned
over or moves through biotic (biosphere) and abiotic
(lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere)
compartments of Earth.
• BG cycles for chemical elements: calcium, carbon,
hydrogen, mercury, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus,
selenium, iron and sulfur; cycle for water;
macroscopic cycles such as rock cycle;
• Some cycles have reservoirs – a substance remains or
is sequestered for a long period of time.

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 WATER BALANCE
• Hydrologic cycle can be quantitatively represented by a
closed equation which represents the continuity equation or
water balance equation.
• WB is application of principle of conservation of mass.
• For a given volume and time-period, difference between
total input and output is balanced by change of water
storage in control volume.
• WB enables a quantitative evaluation of water resources
and their change under various influences.
• WB may be computed for any time interval.
 Mathematical Representation of Hydrologic
Cycle - WB Equation
Continuity equation is applicable to all hydrologic systems.
General form of continuity or water balance equation for any
water body and any time interval:

P + QSI + QGI - ET - QSO - QGO ± S ± = 0

P = precipitation QSI = surface inflow

QGI = ground water inflow ET = evapotranspiration
QSO = surface water outflow QGO = ground water outflow
S = change in storage of water
 is discrepancy term.

Depending on the specific problem, the terms of WB equation

may be further subdivided.
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 Forms of WB Equation
• WB equation may be simplified or made more
complex depending upon
– available data,
– purpose of the study,
– type and size of water body or study area,
– hydrologic features,
– time step size,
– phase of hydrological regime (flood, low flow).
• In large river basins, QGI and QGO are small
compared to other terms and can be ignored.
• Frequently surface water inflow into a river basin is
zero  QSI may be ignored
• Thus, for a large river basin, WB equation can be
simplified as:
P - ET - QSO ± S ±  = 0
 Units for Components of WB Equation

• Components of a WB equation may be expressed as

• Mean depth of water over basin or water body (mm),
• Volume of water (m3),
• Flow rates (m3/sec).

• Last form is convenient for many water management

tasks.
• RF or ET are commonly expressed in depth units,
mm.
• To convert to volume: depth*catchment area
 Global Hydrologic Cycle with Quantities

1 m3 of water = 1000 kg

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/environmental-
science/water-use-and-the-water-cycle/content-section-2.1# 28
 Global Hydrologic Cycle with Quantities

Main water reservoirs (black numbers, in 1000 km3) and flow of moisture (red numbers, in 1000
km3/yr). Adjusted from Trenberth et al. [2007] for the period 2002-2008. 29
Global Hydrologic Cycle with Quantities
Why estimates are differing ?
• Different data used.
• Different periods of data used.
• Different computation techniques used.
• Assumptions may be different.
• …?
 WB equation for different time intervals
• Computation of mean annual WB is most simple problem
• It is possible to disregard S which is difficult to measure
and compute, particularly for annual time scales.
• If WB is performed for a water year, beginning condition
may be assumed same as ending condition.
• Water year in India = 1st June to 31st May.
• Their net value at the end of a long period may be
assumed to be zero.
• For shorter time interval, more precise measurements are
required.
• S must be considered in computation of WB for short-
time periods, say seasons or months.
 WB for Short Time Intervals

• When compiling WBs for short intervals, change

in water storage (S) may be subdivided
– Changes of moisture storage in soil (M),
– Changes in storage in aquifers (G),
– Changes in storage in lakes and reservoirs (L),
– Changes in storage in river channels (SC),
– Changes in storage in glaciers (SG), and
– Changes in storage in snow cover (SS).
• Thus, S can be expressed as:
S = M + G + L + SC + SG + SS
 Closing of WB Equation
• To close WB equation, it is essential to measure or
compute all balance elements using independent methods
wherever possible.
• Measurements and computations of WB elements involve
errors due to shortcomings in techniques used.
• WB equation usually does not balance, even if all
components are measured/computed independently.
• Discrepancy is given as a residual term of WB equation.
• This term includes errors in determination of components
considered, and value of components not taken into
account by particular form of equation being used.
• A low value of  indicates only that WB components tend
to balance out.
 Closing of WB Equation
• If a balance component cannot be obtained by direct
measurement, it may be evaluated as a residual term
in WB equation – hydrologic & numeric constraints.
• In this case, component value includes discrepancy.
• Term may contain an unknown error which may even
be larger than value of component.
• Similar considerations apply when measured values of
a component are used to estimate another component
through (semi)empirical formula.
• Value so estimated will include errors due to
imperfections of formula and measured component,
and overall error is unknown.
 Atmospheric WB
• Atmospheric WB for a country can be written
as:
VI + ET + VAI = P + V0 + VAE + 

• VI = inflow of water vapour from land routes

and sea routes, ET = evapotranspiration, and
VAI = initial water vapour present in
atmosphere, P = total precipitation, V0 =
outgoing water vapour, VAE = water vapour
present at end of period.
•  = residual term
 Atmospheric WB for India
Inflow of Outflow of • Based on observed data, average
moisture moisture annual inflow of water vapour
• From Arabian Ocean = 770 million
ha-m
• From Bay of Bengal = 370 million
ha-m
• Inflow of water vapour from land
routes (mostly during non-monsoon
months) = 300 million ha-m
• Water vapour present at beginning
and end of year over country is
assumed to be same
• equivalent to 40 mm of precipitable
water.
 Atmospheric WB for India
(million ha-m)

VAI 13 P 400

VI 1440 Vo 1318

ET 278 VAE 13

Total 1731 Total 1731

 Hydrologic WB for India
• Hydrologic WB of country for average annual conditions is:
P + I = Q + E + S + 
• I = total inflow as SW (Is) and GW (Ig), Q = total outflow as SW (Qs)
and GW (Qg), S = change soil moisture storage.
• All components are in million ha-m of water.
• SW inflow (Is) from northern rivers (Brahmaputra, Teesta, Kosi,
Kamla, Bagmati, Gandak, Ghaghra, Gomati, and other small
streams).
• Is ≈ 20 million ha-m
• GW inflow ≈ 20 % of SW inflow = 4 million ha-m.
• Considering latest flow and water utilization data, SW outflow from
India ≈ 126 million ha-m.
• GW outflow Qg is estimates as ≈ 20 million ha-m.
 Hydrologic WB for India
P ET
QS
IS
QG
IG Water Balance (million ha-m)

P 400 ET 276
Is 20 Qs 126
IG 4 QG 20
Total 424 Total 422
Discrepancy  = 2
 WB for a Small Basin (mm) - Example
P 1070 Qs 281

Is 10 ET 650

IG 40 QG 140

Total 1120 Total 1071

Discrepancy  = 49, 4.4%

 WB for a Small Basin (mm) - Example
P 1070 Qs 281
Is 10 ET 650
IG 40 QG 140
Total 1120 Total 1071
Discrepancy  = 49, 4.4%
Case 1
P 1070 Qs 281
Is 10 ET ?
IG 40 QG 140
Total 1120 Total 421 + ?
ET = 1120 – (281+140) = 699
Difference = 699 - 650 = 49, 7.5%
 WB for a Small Basin (mm) - Example
P 1070 Qs 281
Is 10 ET 650
IG 40 QG 140
Total 1120
Be careful when Total 1071to compute a quantity
attempting
(whose relative magnitude is small) as a difference
Discrepancy  = 49, 4.4%
or 1sum of two large numbers
Case Case!2
P 1070 Qs 281 P 1070 Qs 281
Is 10 ET ? Is 10 ET 650
IG 40 QG 140 IG ? QG 140
Total 1120 Total 421 + ? Total 1080 + ? Total 1071
ET = 1120 – (281+140) = 699 IG = 1071 – (1070+10) = -9 !!
Difference = 699 - 650 = 49, 7.5% Difference = 40 - (-9) = 49, 122 %
 Summary
• Water is central to the environment and is
considered to be the driver of nature.

• All studies dealing with water are concerned with

some part or the other of the hydrologic cycle.

• Occurrence and availability of water is closely linked

with human development.

• As a result of many human activities, features of

many components of the hydrologic cycle are
changing.

• It is necessary to predict the magnitude and extent

of these changes so that required ameliorative
measures can be initiated well in time.
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