1.

INTRODUCTION

DEFINITION AND SCOPE

Hydrology is literally the science of water. Etymologically, the word has its roots
in ancient Greek, and is a composite, made up of υ´δωρ, water, and λo´γ oς, word.
Obviously, defined this way, the term is much too broad to be very useful, as it
would have ramifications in all scientific disciplines.

Actually, the word hydrology has not always been well defined and even as
recently as the 1960s it was not very clear exactly what hydrology was supposed
to cover and encompass. Price and Heindl (1968), in a survey of many of the
definitions that had appeared in the literature over the previous 100 years, were
compelled to conclude that the question “What is Hydrology?” had not been
resolved by their review. Still, they felt that, in general, there seemed to be a
consensus that hydrology is a physical science, which is concerned mainly with
the water cycle of land and near-shore areas; moreover, there had been a
tendency to broaden the term rather than to narrow it, even to the point of
including socio-economic aspects.

Over the past few decades, however, with the growing activity level and the
increasing maturity of this field of endeavor, a more precise definition has
emerged. Hydrology is now widely (see, for example, Eagleson, 1991) accepted to
be the science that deals with those aspects of the cycling of water in the natural
environment that relate specifically with the following:

 the continental water processes, namely the physical and chemical

processes along the various pathways of continental water (solid, liquid
and vapor) at all scales, including those biological processes that
influence this water cycle directly; and with
 the global water balance, namely the spatial and temporal features of the
water transfers (solid, liquid and vapor) between all compartments of the
global system, i.e. atmosphere, oceans and continents, in addition to
stored water quantities and residence times in these compartments.

Because it is defined as being concerned specifically with continental water

processes, hydrology is a discipline distinct from meteorology, climatology,
oceanology, glaciology and others that also deal with the water cycle in their
own specific domains, namely the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice masses, etc.,
of the Earth; at the same time, however, hydrology integrates and links these
other geosciences, in that through the global water balance it is also concerned
with the exchanges of water between all these separate compartments.

With this definition it is now also possible to delineate the practical scope of
hydrologic analysis in engineering and in other applied disciplines. It consists of
the determination of the amount and/or flow rate of water that will be found at a
given location and at a given time under natural conditions, without direct
human control or intervention.

The latter specification, that no human control be involved, is necessary to

distinguish hydrology from the related discipline of hydraulics. Hydraulics is
concerned with the study of controlled fluid motion in well-defined and often in
human-made environments.

For instance, problems involving pipe flow, irrigation water distribution or

pumping of groundwater are not hydrologic in nature, but are more properly
assigned to the realm of hydraulics.

In Summary:

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 earth science, it is concerned with the water in
streams and lakes, rainfall and snowfall, snow and ice on the land and water
occurring below the earth's surface in the pores of the soil and rocks. In general
sense, hydrology is a very broad subject of an inter-disciplinary nature drawing
support from allied sciences, such as meteorology, geology, statistics, chemistry,
physics and fluid mechanics.

Hydrology is basically an applied science. To further emphasize the degree of

applicability, the subject is sometimes classified as:

 Scientific hydrology - the study which is concerned chiefly with academic

aspects
  Engineering or applied hydrology - a study concerned with engineering
applications

In general sense, engineering hydrology deals with:

 estimation of water resources

 study of processes, run-off, evapotranspiration and their interaction
 the study of problems such as floods and droughts, and strategies to
combat them

2. The Hydrologic Cycle

There are many illustrations for Hydrologic cycle being presented in books. Here
are some of these illustrations.

The water cycle, also called the hydrologic cycle, refers to the pathway of water in nature, as it
moves in its different phases through the atmosphere, down over and through the land, to the
ocean and back up to the atmosphere. When atmospheric water vapor condenses and precipitates
over land, initially it moistens the surface and some amount of it is stored as interception, which
later evaporates. As precipitation (and in a similar way snowmelt) continues, part of it may flow
over the surface in the form of overland flow or surface runoff, and part of it may enter into the
soil as infiltration. This surface runoff soon tends to collect locally, either in puddles or small
ponds as depression storage, or in gullies or larger channels where it continues as streamflow,
which ultimately ends up in a larger water body, such as a lake or the ocean. Streamflow is
normally described by a hydrograph, that is the rate of flow at a gaging station as a function of
time. The infiltrated water may flow rapidly through the near-surface soil layers to exit into
springs or adjacent streams, or it may percolate more slowly through the profile to join
the groundwater, which sooner or later seeps out into the natural river system, lakes and other
open water bodies; part of the infiltrated water is retained in the soil profile by capillarity and
other factors, where it is available for uptake by the roots of vegetation.

Soil layers and other geologic formations, whose pores and interstices can transmit water, are
called aquifers. When an aquifer is in direct contact with the land surface, it is referred to as
unconfined. The locus of points in an unconfined aquifer, where the water pressure is
atmospheric, is called the water table. Although the water table is not a true free surface
separating a saturated zone from a dry zone, it is sometimes assumed to be the upper boundary of
the groundwater in an unconfined aquifer. The partly saturated zone in an unconfined aquifer,
between the water table and the ground surface, is sometimes referred to as the vadose zone. In
an unconfined aquifer, the term groundwater refers usually to the water found below the water
table; soil water or soil moisture refers to the water above the water table. A water bearing
geologic formation, that is separated from the surface by an impermeable layer, is referred to as a
confined aquifer. Streamflow is fed both by surface runoff and by subsurface flow from riparian
(i.e. located along the banks) aquifers. The streamflow, resulting from groundwater outflow is
often called base flow; in the absence of storm flow or storm runoff caused by precipitation, base
flow is also referred to as drought flow or fair weather flow.

Finally, the hydrologic cycle is closed by evaporation, which returns the water, while in transit in
the different flow paths and stages of storage along the way, back into the atmosphere.
When evaporation takes place through the stomates of vegetation, it can be referred to as
transpiration. Direct evaporation from open water or soil surfaces and transpiration of biological
water from plants are not easy to separate; therefore the combined process is sometimes called
evapotranspiration. Evaporation of ice is commonly referred to as sublimation. While these
distinctions are useful at times, the term evaporation is usually adequate to describe all processes
of vaporization. Some of the main processes are drawn schematically in the figure above.
Hydrologic cycle is the water transfer cycle, which occurs continuously in nature; the three
important phases of the hydrologic cycle are: (a) Evaporation and evapotranspiration
(b) precipitation and (c) runoff and is shown in figure above. The globe has one-third land and
two thirds ocean. Evaporation from the surfaces of ponds, lakes, reservoirs. ocean surfaces,
etc. and transpiration from surface vegetation i.e., from plant leaves of cropped land and
forests, etc. take place. These vapours rise to the sky and are condensed at higher altitudes by
condensation nuclei and form clouds, resulting in droplet growth. The clouds melt and
sometimes burst resulting in precipitation of different forms like rain, snow, hail, sleet, mist, dew
and frost. A part of this precipitation flows over the land called runoff and part infilters into
the soil which builds up the ground water table. The surface runoff joins the streams and
the water is stored in reservoirs. A portion of surface runoff and ground water flows back to
ocean.

Again evaporation starts from the surfaces of lakes, reservoirs and ocean, and the cycle
repeats. Of these three phases of the hydrologic cycle,
namely, evaporation, precipitation and runoff, it is the ‘runoff phase’, which is important to a
civil engineer since he is concerned with the storage of surface runoff in tanks and reservoirs for
the purposes of irrigation, municipal water supply hydroelectric power etc.

3. HYDROLOGICAL DATA

For the analysis and design of any hydrologic project adequate data and length of records
arenecessary. A hydrologist is often posed with lack of adequate data. The basic hydrological
datarequired are:

(i) Climatological data

(ii) Hydrometeorological data like temperature, wind velocity, humidity, etc.

(iii) Precipitation records

(iv) Stream-flow records

(v) Seasonal fluctuation of ground water table or piezometric heads

(vi) Evaporation data

(vii) Cropping pattern, crops and their consumptive use

(viii) Water quality data of surface streams and ground water

(ix) Geomorphologic studies of the basin, like area, shape and slope of the basin, mean and
median elevation, mean temperature (as well as highest and lowest temperature recorded) and
other physiographic characteristics of the basin; stream density and drainage density; tanks and
reservoirs
(x) Hydrometeorological characteristics of basin:

 a.a.r., long term precipitation, space average over the basin using isohyets and several
other methods (Rainbird, 1968)
 Depth-area-duration (DAD) curves for critical storms (station equipped with self-
recording raingauges).
 Isohyetal maps—Isohyets may be drawn for long-term average, annual and
monthly precipitation for individual years and months
 Cropping pattern—crops and their seasons
 Daily, monthly and annual evaporation from water surfaces in the basin
 Water balance studies of the basin
 Chronic problems in the basin due to a flood-menacing river (like Tapti or Tapi in central
India) or siltmenacing river (like Tungabhadra in Karnataka)
 Soil conservation and methods of flood control

4. HYDROLOGIC EQUATION

The hydrologic equation (also called water budget equation) is simply the statement of the law of
conservation of matter and is given by

I = O + ΔS

where I = inflow

O = outflow

ΔS = change in storage

This equation states that during a given period, the total inflow into a given area must equal the
total outflow from the area plus the change is storage. While solving this equation, the ground
water is considered as an integral part of the surface water and it is the subsurface inflow and
outflow that pose problems in the water balance studies of a basin.

5. WATER BALANCE EQUATION

In quantitative terms the hydrologic cycle can be represented by a closed equation

which represents the principle of conservation of mass, often referred to in hydraulics as the
continuity equation. Many forms of this expression, called the water balance equation, are
possible by subdividing, consolidating, or eliminating some of the terms, depending on
the purpose of computation. The water balance can be expressed (1) for a short interval or for a
long duration; (2) for a natural drainage basin or an artificially separated boundary or with
respect to water bodies such as lakes, reservoirs, and groundwater basins; and (3) for the phase
above the ground surface, that below the surface, or the entire phase. Three applications of the
water balance equation are common: (1) a water balance equation for large basin areas, (2) a
water balance equation for water bodies, and (3) a water balance equation for direct runoff. In the
first two cases the entire phase above and below the ground surface is considered in the equation
in terms of the streamflows. The infiltration term, I, that drops out in the entire phase appears in
the direct runoff case above the ground surface. In its general form, the equation may be
represented by

P + QSI + QGI – E – QSO – QGO – Δs – n = 0 [L3 or L3T–1]

where

Since all water balance components are subject to errors of measurement and estimation, a
discrepancy term has been included. The components of the given equation above are expressed
as a volume of water or in the form of flow rates or as a mean depth over the basin. The last form
is convenient for the balance equation of direct runoff.

5.1. Balance Equation for Water Bodies for Short Duration

The water balance equation for reservoirs, lakes, streams, and groundwater
reservoirs is used to predict the consequences of the prevailing inflow and
outflow conditions on the body of water. The equation is relevant for day-to-day
operation of the water body. A short time period is involved in these studies and
the term Δs must be considered. If the inflow terms the given equation below,
QSI and QGI are combined into one term, Qi , and the outflow terms QSO and QGO into
one term, Qo, water balance equation can be represented, ignoring the
discrepancy term, by

P + Qi – E − Qo – Δs = 0 [L3]
When only a segment of a river is involved, the terms P and E within the river
reach can be dropped.

5.2. Balance Equation for Large River Basins for Long Duration

In large river basins, the water balance equation is used for the quantitative evaluation of basin
resources and for substantiation of projects for their intended use and proposed modifications.
The study of mean water balances is usually performed on a long-duration basis (for an annual
cycle). Over a long period, positive and negative water storage variations tend to balance, and the
change in storage, Δs, may be disregarded. The groundwater exchange in large basins with
neighboring basins is ignored (i.e., Q GI – QGO = 0). There is no surface water inflow into a basin
with a distinct watershed divide (i.e., QSI = 0). Ignoring the discrepancy term, water balance
equation reduces to

P – E – Q = 0 [L3 or L]

where Q is the discharge volume from the basin into the river.

5.3. Balance Equation for Direct Runoff within a Basin during a Storm

Surface contribution to streamflow and direct runoff are synonymous terms. In

terms of runoff, the water balance from a storm over the ground surface is

P – E – I – SD – R = 0 [L]

The storm evaporation during the short period is small and can be disregarded. If
the interception and depression storage can also be ignored in comparison with
the infiltration (in a more exact determination, these terms are estimated
separately), the equation above reduces to

R = P – I [L]
5.4. Water Balance Equation for Direct Runoff within a Basin for Longer than Storm

Duration

The long duration in this balance equation means a period longer than the storm duration, for
which the evapotranspiration component cannot be neglected. The values of the water balance
components are averaged for this period. This can be a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly
duration. Models of this type have been developed by Thornthwaite and Mather (1955), Palmer
(1965), and Haan (1972), in which the input of water from precipitation has been equated to the
outflow of water by evapotranspiration, infiltration, and runoff.

Conceptually, these models consider that moisture is either added to or subtracted from the soil,
depending on whether precipitation for a period is greater than or less than the potential
evapotranspiration.

When precipitation is less than the potential evapotranspiration, actual evapotranspiration in

these models is treated as a function of the soil moisture content. This results in the loss of soil
moisture and an increased moisture deficit; that is, the difference between the soil moisture
capacity and the soil moisture storage at a given time.

When precipitation for a period exceeds the potential evapotranspiration, moisture is added to the
soil until it attains its capacity. Any excess water contributes to runoff.

A model presented by Thomas (1981), known as the abcd model, places an upper limit on the
sum of evapotranspiration and soil moisture storage rather than only on the soil moisture storage
to its capacity. This provides a value of actual evapotranspiration less than the potential
evapotranspiration and can simulate a decrease in soil moisture storage even
when precipitation is in excess of potential evapotranspiration.

The Thomas model defines two state variables. One, known as the available water, is the sum of
the precipitation to the end of a period i and the soil moisture storage to the end of the previous
period (i – 1); that is,

Wi = Pi + Si–1 [L3 or L]

The other state variable, Yi , is the sum of actual evapotranspiration and soil moisture storage at
the end of period i; that is,

Yi = Ei + Si [L3 or L]

Thomas has suggested the following nonlinear relation between the two state variables.
where a and b are the model parameters. Parameter a, according to Thomas, reflects
the propensity of runoff to occur before the soil is fully saturated. Its value of less than 1 results
in runoff for Wi < b. Parameter b is an upper limit on the sum of evapotranspiration and
soil moisture storage. This Equation assures that Y i<Wi.

In order to allocate Yi of the previous equation between evapotranspiration and soil moisture
storage at the end of the period, it is assumed that the rate of loss of soil moisture due
to evapotranspiration is proportional to the soil moisture storage and potential
evapotranspiration (PE), which leads to the relation

The difference Wi – Yi represents the sum of direct runoff (DR)i and infiltration contributing to
groundwater recharge (GR)i , since a part of the infiltrated water results in a change of soil
moisture storage (Si – Si–1). The allocation between the direct runoff and groundwater recharge is
suggested as follows:

where c is a model parameter that is related to the fraction of mean runoff that comes
from groundwater.

If Gi denotes the groundwater storage at the end of period i, then

The groundwater discharge is given by

where d is a model parameter for the fraction of groundwater storage discharged.

The streamflow at the end of period i is equal to (DR)i + (QG)i . Thus the model is applied to
determine the averaged streamflow.

The values of parameters a, b, c, and d are obtained by calibrating the model from the known
data for the water balance components. Alley (1984) estimated the following mean monthly
values from the study of 10 sites in New Jersey, each having a record of 50 years: a = 0.992, b =
30, c = 0.16, and d = 0.26. Runoff estimates are very sensitive to parameter a.
The application of the model requires initial estimates of soil moisture storage, S 0,
and groundwater storage, G0. Thomas suggests the use of optimized values of S 0 and G0 from
the basin study. Alley (1984) suggests assuming some initial values of S 0 and G0 and
simulating data for some period (for a year in monthly data) prior to the beginning of the period
of interest.