10/22/05 Colorado State University Department of Civil Engineering CE 322

Notes on Flood Routing through Reservoirs and Channels

Jose D. Salas 1. Introduction Many design and management problems in hydrologic and water resources engineering require routing flood hydrographs through reservoirs and channels. For example, in designing the spillway capacity of a reservoir the designer generally needs to route the design flood hydrograph through the reservoir to find out how effective the trial spillway design may be in passing the flood. Likewise, a flood warning system may depend on estimating the flood hydrographs at certain reference or control points along a river system. Given that a flood is measured or estimated at an upstream point then one can estimate (predict) the flood hydrograph that may result at other downstream points by routing the flood along the river channel. The main objective of this chapter is to provide some basic concepts and procedures for understanding the flood routing problem. Concepts (fundamental equations, etc.) Assumptions Hydrologic and Hydraulic Routing

2. Flood Routing Through Reservoirs The main purpose of routing a flood hydrograph through a reservoir is evaluating how effective the reservoir and its outlet structures are to attenuate and control the incoming flood, i.e. the flood is to be either eliminated or decreased to expected manageable levels. For this purpose one would like to estimate the flood hydrograph that will be discharged from the reservoir. Routing a flood hydrograph through a reservoir requires the following information: (i) the reservoir storage characteristic, (ii) the hydraulic characteristics of the sluice gates and spillways, and (iii) the operating rule of the reservoir. The reservoir storage characteristic is the relationship of the reservoir level H (or elevation) and the reservoir volume S (storage). Such a relationship is schematically shown in the figure below. It is generally obtained from topographic maps for a reservoir that is being planned or designed or it is obtained from field surveys for an existing reservoir. Generally the reservoir storage for a given level decreases with time because of the accumulation of sediments after years of operation. Therefore, re-evaluating the effectiveness of a reservoir system to safely pass extreme flood events requires a periodic verification and calibration of the H vs S relationship. The hydraulic characteristics of the sluice gates and spillways are defined by the relationship between the reservoir level H and the outflow O. For example, an ungated ogee type spillway of length L having a hydraulic head h above the crest of the spillway Hc will discharge an amount O = C s L h 3 / 2 where Cs is the spillways discharge coefficient. The relation H vs O for a reservoir with spillway but no sluice gate is 1

shown in line a of Fig.1(b). Likewise, a sluice gate with an opening area A and a hydraulic head h will discharge O = C g A h1 / 2 where Cg is the discharge coefficient of the sluice gate. Thus the combination of a spillway and a sluice gate will discharge as shown in line b of Fig.1(b). In addition, for convenience of the routing procedure it is common to combine the H vs S and H vs O relationships into a single function of the form 2 S / t + O vs O where t is the routing time interval. Fig.1(c) shows a schematic of the referred relation considering the case of a spillway alone (line a') and the effect of a spillway plus a sluice gate (line b').

H Spillway crest level

H Hc

a b

O a' b'

Reservoir Storage S

Reservoir Outflow O

2S/t + O

(a) Fig.1

(b)

(c)

The operating rule of a reservoir is a predefined criteria on how the reservoir should be operated in anticipation to and during the occurrence of a flood event. The operating rule is especially meaningful when the outlet structures of the reservoir (the sluice gates and the spillway) are gated. In the case of ungated structures there is no operating rule to follow and the reservoir will respond to the impending flood according to the design characteristics of the outlet structures. In the rest of this section we will assume that the sluice gates and spillway are ungated structures. The key equation to apply to route a flood hydrograph through a reservoir is the storage equation (continuity equation), which can be written in difference form as
S t = S t t + ( I O ) t (1)

where S t = reservoir storage at time t, and I and O are respectively, the average reservoir inflow (incoming flood) and average reservoir outflow during the time interval t . It may be shown that Eq.(1) can be rewritten as:
2St 2S + O t = t t O t t + ( I t t + I t ) t t Also (2a) is commonly expressed as 2S2 2S + O2 = 1 O1 + ( I1 + I 2 ) t t
2

(2a)

(2b)

where it is understood that the time interval between times 1 and 2 is t . Routing the flood hydrograph It, t = 1,2, through the reservoir requires solving Eq.(2) and the function 2S / t + O = f (O) (3) a function that is generally obtained (or available) in tabular and graphical forms as explained above. The system can be solved iteratively assuming that the initial condition for the outflow is known, i.e. O1 is known. For example, for a flood control reservoir with no sluice gate one could assume that initially the reservoir level is at or below the crest of the spillway, i.e. O1 = 0. The example below further illustrates the routing procedure. Example 1. A flood control reservoir has a storage-elevation relationship as shown in the table and plot in Fig.2 (a) and (b). The dam has an ungated sluice gate with an area equal to 0.75 m2, the centroid of the gate is located at elevation 100.25 m, and the discharge coefficient is 2.65. The spillway is also ungated with a length of 1.75 m, a discharge coefficient equal to 3, and its crest is at elevation 109 m. The inflow hydrograph is available at 2-hr time steps and the initial discharge at time 0 is equal to 1 m3/s. We would like to determine the reservoir outflow hydrograph. Firstly, the reservoir level and outflow relationship is obtained. For this purpose we use the equation O = C g A H 100.25 = 2.65 0.75 H 100.25 = 1.9875 H 100.25 for 100.25 < H 109 to determine the discharge through the sluice gate. In addition, since the crest of the spillway is located at H = 109 m, the reservoir outflows for H > 109 m are obtained by O = C g A( H 100.25)1 / 2 + C s L ( H 109) 3 / 2
= 2.65 0.75( H 100.25)1 / 2 + 3 1.75( H 109) 3 / 2 = 1.9875( H 100.25)1 / 2 + 5.25( H 109) 3 / 2

The results of the reservoir level versus outflow relationship are shown in the table and graph in Fig. 2(a) and 2(c), respectively. Furthermore, the function 2 S / t + O vs O is obtained considering t = 2 hrs (the inflow hydrograph time step). The results are also shown in the table and graph in Fig.2 (a) and (d), respectively. The routing of the flood hydrograph through the reservoir is made by combining Eq.(2) and the function 2 S / t + O vs O . The computations (refer to the table in Fig. 2(e)) are made iteratively beginning with the initial value of the outflow (1 m3/s), then the value 2 S / t + O = 5.84 is obtained by interpolating from the table in Fig. 2(a). Subsequently (2S / t O) = (2S / t + O) 2O = 3.84 is obtained, and then the new value 2S / t + O = 6.34 is found from Eq.(2). Finally, entering with 2S / t + O = 6.34 to the table in (a) a new value of the outflow O = 1.08 is found. Then the iterative solution continues throughout the total routing period. The results of the routed flood are shown in the table (e) and graph (f) in Fig.2. Note that the peak flood is reduced from 12 m3/s to about 4.1 m3/s and the time of the peak occurs during the hours t=12-14. 3

Reservoir Storage S Outflow 2S/t + O m3/s Level H(m) 106 m3 m3/s 100 0.000 0 0 101 0.030 1.72 10.1 102 0.075 2.63 23.5 103 0.123 3.30 37.5 104 0.167 3.85 50.2 105 0.220 4.33 65.4 106 0.285 4.77 83.9 107 0.350 5.16 102.4 108 0.425 5.53 123.6 109 0.500 5.88 144.8 110 0.600 11.46 178.1 111 0.750 21.37 229.7 112 0.975 34.09 304.9

Reservoir Level versus Storage

Reservoir Level H (m)
112 109 106 103 100 0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

1.00

Storage O in millions cubic m

(a)
Reservoir Level versus Discharge
Reservoir Level H (m)
112

(b)
2S/dt + O versus O
40

O (cubic m/s)

109 106 103 100 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

30 20 10 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Discharge O (cm/s)

2S/dt + O (cubic m/s)

(c)
Time t Inflow I 2S/t - O 2S/t + O Outflow O m3/s m3/s m3/s hrs m3/s 0 0.0 3.84 5.84 1 2 2.5 4.18 6.34 1.08 4 6.0 9.21 12.68 1.74 6 12.0 21.59 27.21 2.81 8 10.0 36.46 43.59 3.56 10 7.0 45.56 53.46 3.95 12 4.5 48.92 57.06 4.07 14 3.7 48.94 57.07 4.07 16 3.0 47.55 55.59 4.02 18 2.5 45.17 53.05 3.94 20 2.0 42.02 49.67 3.83 22 1.5 38.22 45.52 3.65 24 1.1 33.9 40.77 3.44

(d)
Reservoir Inflow and Outflow
15

Inflow and outflow (cm/s)

12 9 6 3 0 0 5 10 15

Inflow I Outflow O

20

25

Time (hrs)

(e) Fig.2 4

(f)

The storage versus outflow (S vs O) relationship for natural lakes is commonly developed by field measurements of the storage and the reservoir discharges. When S versus O appears to have a linear relationship such as S=KO where K is a constant, the routing of a flood hydrograph through the lake can be simplified. In fact, substituting the linear reservoir approximation S=KO into Eq.(1) using as time steps 1 and 2 instead of t-t and t gives
K O2 = K O1 + 0.5 ( I 1 + I 2 )t 0.5 (O1 + O2 )t

This equation may be rewritten as O2 = c0 I 2 + c1 I1 + c 2 O1 where the coefficients are given by

c 0 = c1 = 0.5 t , K + 0.5t c2 = K 0.5 t K + 0.5t

(4)

(5)

It is clear that c 0 + c1 + c 2 = 1 . Also the coefficients must be bigger than 0 so that one must comply with the requirement t < 2K to obtain realistic values.
3. Flood Routing through Channels

Flood routing through channels means estimating the propagation of a flood hydrograph as it travels downstream. Specifically, we are interested in routing a flood through a particular reach of a channel or routing the flood from the upstream cross section to the downstream cross section. For this purpose we need to determine the flood plain and channel storage characteristics that flood waves traveling through the channel reach occupy and we need to formulate a relationship between the referred storage versus the inflow and the outflow. Such characteristics and relationship can be determined from past records of flood hydrographs measured at the upstream and downstream sections of the reach under consideration. Consider a flood that has been measured at the upstream and downstream cross sections of a channel reach. They are referred to as the input It and the output Ot, respectively and are plotted as shown schematically in Fig.3. Referring to the figure one can express the cumulative storage in the reach at time t as S t = S t 1 + S = S t 1 + ( I O )t (6) Then from past records of It and Ot one can obtain the storage function St. Referring to Fig. 3 one may observe that the storage St accumulates until the time the inflow and the outflow hydrographs cross each other. Thereafter the storage decreases until the flood terminates. Then one may formulate a mathematical model representing the storage as a function of the inflow and the outflow. This function is generally non-linear but a linear function such as S = K [ x I + (1 x) O] (7)

has been widely used with success in practice. The parameters of the model, K and x, can be found by trial and error from observed data of I and O so that the relationship S = g (I, O) is linear as Eq.(7) implies. Combining Eqs. (6) and (7), the outflow at time 2 may be written as O2 = c 0 I 2 + c1 I 1 + c 2 O1 where the coefficients are c0 = K (1 x) 0.5t Kx 0.5t Kx + 0.5t , c1 = , c2 = K (1 x) + 0.5t K (1 x) + 0.5t K (1 x) + 0.5t (9) (8)

Clearly c 0 + c1 + c 2 = 1 and ci > 0 , i = 1,2,3 . For ci>0 one must have (t / 2 x) > K . Thus the routing problem can be done by solving Eq.(8) iteratively beginning with a known initial value of the outflow. The flood routing procedure as shown above has been known in literature as the Muskingum routing method. The Example 2 below further illustrates the procedure. Inflow Outflow Ot Ot-1 t 0 t-1 t Fig.3 Example 2. Measurements of the inflow and outflow flood hydrographs at the upstream and downstream cross sections of a channel reach are available as shown in Table 1. Based on this information we would like to determine: (a) the storage function of the reach, (b) the Muskingum routing parameters x and K, and (c) the error of using the Muskingum routing method (and the selected routing parameters) for determining the outflow hydrograph. (a) The storage function St is obtained from Eq.(6). The results in 1000 m3 are shown in Table 1. (b) The Muskingum routing parameters x and K are determined by trial and error. We calculated the function [xI + (1-x) O] for values of x in the range 0.1-0.4 and plotted the function [xI + (1-x) O] versus O. For illustration the results for x=0.1 and x=0.265 are shown in Fig.4. Also the Table 1 gives the values of [xI + (1-x) O] for x=0.265. We compared the plots for the various values of x considered and that for x=0.265 appeared to yield the best results (i.e. closer to a straight line). The slope of the fitted 6

It

Ot

S It-1 St-1

It

straight line gives K=2.75 hr (thin line in the referred figure). Therefore, the pair x=0.265 and K=2.75 hr seems to be the parameter set that could be appropriate for flood routing through the referred channel reach. (c) One can evaluate how the parameter set found in step (b) above performs in routing flood hydrographs through the channel. This could be done based on the original inflow and outflow data set that we used in (b) for estimating the parameters or based on different sets of inflow and outflow hydrographs (not used for parameter estimation). In this example, because of lack of independent inflow/outflow data sets, we will make the evaluation by using the original flood data. For this purpose, we estimated the routing coefficients of Eq.(9) using t=1 hr and got: c0= -0.087, c1=0.489, and c2=0.598. Obviously, these are not good coefficients because c0 is negative. This has occurred because the constraint (t / 2 x) > K was not met. On the other hand, if we choose t=2 hr we get: c0=0.0898, c1=0.5722, and c2=0.338. Thus we routed the inflow hydrograph for t=2 hr (3rd column from the last) and got the outflow and the estimation errors shown in the last two columns of the table. Also the table shows the mean and the standard deviation of the errors, which are small relative to the corresponding values of the original outflow data. The inflow and the observed and computed outflow hydrographs are compared in Fig.5. Table 1.

Time t Inflow It Outflow Ot hrs m3/s m3/s 1 5 2 2 11 4 3 25 7 4 60 10 5 70 25 6 65 40 7 54 55 8 40 60 9 32 54 10 26 43 11 22 34 12 18 26 13 16 23 14 15 20 15 14 18 16 13 16 17 12 15 18 11 13

S 1000 m3 0 18.0 45.0 122.4 171.0 126.0 43.2 -37.8 -75.6 -70.2 -52.2 -36.0 -27.0 -21.6 -16.2 -12.6 -10.8 -9.0

St 1000 m3 0.0 18.0 63.0 185.4 356.4 482.4 525.6 487.8 412.2 342.0 289.8 253.8 226.8 205.2 189.0 176.4 165.6 156.6

Error Computed Inflow It Ot - O t xI + (1-x)O (for t=2) outflow Ot 3 3 3 x=0.265 m /s m /s m /s 2.8 5 5.0 -3.0 5.9 11.8 25 6.8 0.2 23.3 36.9 70 22.9 2.1 46.6 54.7 54 52.6 2.4 54.7 48.2 32 51.6 2.4 38.5 30.8 22 37.7 -3.7 23.9 21.1 16 26.8 -3.8 18.7 16.9 14 19.5 -1.5 15.2 14.2 12 15.7 -0.7 12.5 Mean error -0.6 St. Dev. 2.6

Estimation of the parameters x and K

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 200 400 Storage in 1000 cubic m

xI+(1-x)O (cubic m/s)

x=0.10 x=0.265 Straight line fit

600

800

Fig.4

Channel routing verification

80

I (cm/s) and O (cm/s)

Inflow Observed outflow Computed outflow x=0.265,K=2.75

60 40 20 0 0 5 10

15

20

Time (hours)

Fig.5 Example 3. Based on the routing parameters obtained in Example 2 above route the inflow hydrograph shown in the table below through the channel reach and obtain the outflow hydrograph. The routing of the flood hydrograph is based on the parameters: x=0.265, K=2.75 hr. which gave c0=0.0898, c1=0.5722, and c2=0.338. We then apply Eq.(8) as O2 = c0 I 2 + c1 I1 + c2O1 = 0.0898 I 2 + 0.5722 I1 + 0.338 O1 8

For example, we start with O1=7.5 (we are assuming that just before the flood begins to rise the outflow at time 1 is the same as the inflow). Then the equation above gives O2=10.2 m3/s. The final outflow hydrograph is shown in the table (a) and graph (b) in Fig.6.
Time hrs 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 Inflow m3/s 7.5 37.5 105.0 81.0 48.0 32.0 24.0 21.0 18.0 15.0 13.0 Outflow m3/s 7.5 10.2 34.3 79.0 77.3 56.5 39.6 29.0 23.4 19.6 16.4

Results of channel routing

Streamflow I and O (cm/s) 120 90 60 30 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 Time (hours)

Inflow Outflow

(a) Fig.6

(b)

Problems

1. A flood control reservoir has a storage-elevation relationship given in the table shown below. The dam has an ungated spillway with a length of 2 m, a discharge coefficient equal to 3, and the crest of the spillway is located at elevation 59 m. The inflow hydrograph is available at 2-hr time steps and at time 0 the reservoir level is at 58 m. Determine the reservoir outflow hydrograph.
Res.Level Storage S H(m) millions m3 50 0.000 51 0.030 52 0.075 53 0.123 54 0.167 55 0.220 56 0.285 57 0.350 58 0.425 59 0.500 60 0.600 61 0.750 62 0.975 Time t hrs 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 Inflow I m3/s 0.0 2.5 6.0 12.0 10.0 7.0 4.5 3.7 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.1

2. Consider the same reservoir level versus storage characteristics of the reservoir as is Example 1 and also the same hydraulic characteristics of the spillway and sluice gate except that the sluice gate has a cross section area of 0.25 m2 instead of 0.75. In addition, assume also the same inflow hydrograph. Route the flood through the reservoir assuming that when the flood begins, i.e. at t = 0: (a) the reservoir outflow is 1 m3/s and (b) the reservoir level is at 108 m. In each case find (and plot) the reservoir outflow hydrograph and determine the maximum water level attained in the reservoir. If the top level of the dam were at elevation 112 m., would the dam be in any danger of overflowing? 3. Consider a small lake with the same water level versus storage characteristics as that of the reservoir in Example 1. In addition, also assume the same inflow flood hydrograph. However, in this case the lake outlet is a natural channel that is located at elevation 109 m. Thus a linear reservoir approximation can be used for the relationship of storage versus outflow, i.e. S = KO, in which the constant is K= 8 hr. Assuming that the lake level is at elevation 108 m. when the flood begins, route the flood hydrograph through the reservoir and obtain the reservoir outflow hydrograph. 4. Measurements of the inflow and outflow flood hydrographs at the upstream and downstream cross sections of a channel reach are shown in the table below at 6-hr time steps. Based on this information determine the following: (a) the storage function of the reach, (b) the Muskingum routing parameters x and K, (c) the error of using the Muskingum routing method for determining the outflow hydrograph, and (d) the routed flood hydrograph at the downstream cross section of the reach for the flood given in the table below. 10

t (6-hrs) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Inflow I (cfs) 2.0 1.6 3.4 14.6 16.5 16.3 11.4 8.5 5.9 4.2 2.9 2.3 1.8 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.3 1.2 1.1

Outflow O (cfs) 2.4 2.3 2.4 4.1 7.2 9.8 11.7 12.0 11.4 9.1 7.3 6.2 4.9 3.7 2.9 2.3 2.0 1.8 1.6

t (6-hr) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Flood (cfs) 4.3 5.0 10.0 32.2 36.0 36.2 26.0 18.6 12.9 9.3 6.4 5.0 3.9 3.6 3.4 3.2 2.9 2.7 2.5 2.4

11

References

Linsley et al, 1986

12