Hydrology Project 5
Hydrology Project 5
Hydrology Project 5
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
PROJECT NO.5
SOLVED PROBLEMS IN HYDROLOGY
SCORE
PROBLEMS
1. The average annual discharge at the outlet of a catchment is 0.5 m3 /s. The
catchment is situated in a desert area (no vegetation) and the size is 800
km2 . The average annual precipitation is 200 mm/year.
a. Compute the average annual evaporation from the catchment in mm/year.
In the catchment area an irrigation project covering 10 km2 is developed.
After some years the average discharge at the outlet of the catchment
appears to be 0.175 m3 /s.
b. Compute the evapotranspiration from the irrigated area in mm/year,
assuming no change in the evaporation from the rest of the catchment.
2. For a watershed with a size of 120 km2 , the following data on precipitation P,
evaporation E and runoff Q are given in mm.
a. At the end of which month is the amount of water stored in the basin
largest and when is the smallest amount of water present in the
catchment? What is the difference (m3 ) in the amount of water stored in
the basin between these two extremes?
b. In what climate (arid, humid temperate or humid tropical) do you expect
this catchment to be located?
3. A catchment has a size of 100 km2 . In its original condition, the average
annual total runoff from the catchment is 1.1 m3 /s. The average annual
rainfall is 800 mm/a. In an average year, 50% of the rainfall infiltrates and
12.5% of the rainfall reaches the groundwater. Tests have turned out that the
average annual evapotranspiration from the unsaturated zone (being the sum
of the transpiration and the bare soil evaporation) amounts to 340 mm/a. In
all water balance computations over the year, one may assume that the
storage effects are small (dS/dt = +0).
a. How much water, in mm/a, reaches the root zone through capillary rise in
an average year?
b. How much water, in mm/a, seeps out from the groundwater to the surface
water in an average year?
c. The Water Board decides to lower the open water level in the polder from
the original high level to a much lower level. As a result of this, the annual
amount of seepage as well as the evapotranspiration change by 10%. The
water intake remains the same (0.7 km3 /a). Compute for the new
situation the average amount that is pumped out in mm/a.
a. Compute and plot the mass curve (cumulative rainfall depth with time).
b. Sketch roughly in the same figure what would have been the mass curve
for the situation that the position of the raingauge is changed in such a
way that the rim of the collector is at ground level
Make a graph of the extreme rainfall depth versus the logarithm of the return
period. Do not use semi-log paper. Estimate the annual maximum daily
rainfall with a return period of 20 years.
11. The Gumbel distribution of daily extreme rainfall data (mm) shows
that:
P(X < 100) = 0.90
P(X < 130) = 0.98
a. Compute the daily extreme rainfall for a return period of 100 years. (If
you wish you can check the answer yourself graphically in figure 2.23).
The annual actual evapotranspiration Eact equals 610 mm. Except for one
month, the actual evapotranspiration equals the potential
evapotranspiration.
a. Give the values for P, Eo, Epot and Eact. Explain your answer.
14. The three data sets in the table and chart below refer to monthly
evaporation values in mm/d for a shallow lake, a deep lake and a Class A
pan in the same region in The Netherlands.
a. Which data set belongs to the shallow lake, which one to the deep lake
and which data set represents the pan evaporation data? Please
explain.
b. Estimate the pan coefficient for the deep lake and for the shallow lake.
b. Estimate from the graph below the total amount of water that will
infiltrate into the soil during a rainstorm with a duration 20 minutes
and a constant intensity of 20 mm/h. Answer the same question for a
constant rainfall intensity of 12 mm/h.
b. If all this water has been used the crop is dead (wilting point
condition). In order to prevent reduction in crop yield the farmer will
irrigate the crop when half of the available moisture is used. If the
evapotranspiration rate of the crop equals 4 mm/d, compute the
irrigation interval in the absence of precipitation.
21. In a soil with a deep water-table the root zone has a depth of 50 cm.
The moisture content at field capacity for this root zone is 28%. Just
before irrigation the moisture content in the root zone is 12%. During
irrigation 110 mm of water infiltrates into the soil. How much water
percolates from the root zone into the subsoil?
22. Consider the water balance of a reservoir during the last 6 weeks of
a long dry season. The reservoir is receiving water from one river only. The
river discharge into the reservoir at the start and at the end of the 6 week
period is 10 and 1.8 m3/s, respectively. The surface area of the reservoir is
20 km2.
a. Compute for each week the rise of the water level in the reservoir due
to the inflow of river water only. The following precipitation (P) and
evaporation (E) data (mm/week) apply for the 6-week period.
At the dam site water is released with a constant rate of 5 m 3/s. There
are no other significant flows that should be considered for the water
balance of the reservoir.
b. Compute the water level in the reservoir at the end of each week given
a water level of 20 m above mean sea level at the start of the 6 week
period.
c. Estimate the total base flow contribution from this rain storm.