Applied Hydrology

Flood Routing & Detention Basin

Design
Professor Ke-Sheng Cheng
Dept. of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering
National Taiwan University

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The storage effect
The storage effect of a water-retention
structure or a channel reach can change the
shape of the inflow hydrograph. Therefore
two types of routing procedures are needed
to calculate the outflow hydrograph.
Level-pool routing
Channel routing

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Level-Pool Routing (Reservoir
Routing)
For a reservoir the outflow is uniquely
controlled by the water depth (or stage) of
the reservoir pool. Also, the reservoir
storage is a single-value function of the
stage.

Flow velocity in the reservoir is usually very low.

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Comparison of flow routing under invariable and
variable stage-discharge (S~Q) relationships

Invariable S~Q relationship Variable S~Q relationship

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Discharge under variable S~Q
relationship

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Reservoir routing
Modified puls method (Storage indication
method)

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 +

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An example
 Given the following storage-outflow relationship and inflow
hydrograph, calculate the outflow hydrograph. (Use 10-
minute routing interval).

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Stage~storage~outflow relationship

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Reservoir routing as a computation of
mass balance
For a reservoir the outflow is uniquely
controlled by the water depth (or stage) of
the reservoir pool. Also, the reservoir
storage is a single-value function of the
stage.
As a result, given a stage the reservoir
storage and outflow can be uniquely
determined, if the stage~storage and
stage~outflow relationships are known.
An intuitive trial-and-error approach for
reservoir routing can be implemented.
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Alternative solution

Stage~storage

Stage~discharge

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Spreadsheet calculation

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Inflow-outflow-(10*storage)

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Example of reservoir routing

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Channel routing

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