ASSIGNMENT UNIT 1

1. Describe the hydrologic cycle with a neat sketch.

2. Describe Global water budget and Indias water budget.
3. List out various practical applications of Hydrology.
4. What are the Hydrologic failures? Give few examples of Hydrologic failures.
5. Describe with a neat sketch the principle of working of Symons raingauge.
How does the Indian Standard raingauge differ from Symons gauge?
6. Describe the principle of working of a tipping bucket type recording raingauge
with a neat sketch. What are its advantages and disadvantages?
7. Describe the principle of working of a weighing bucket type recording
raingauge with a neat sketch. Mention its advantages and disadvantages?
8. Describe the principle of working of a float type recording raingauge with a
neat sketch. Discuss its advantages and disadvantages?
9. Describe the principle of rainfall measurement using a radar with neat
sketches.
10.What are the precautions to be taken in selecting a site for the location of a
raingauge?
11.Describe the three methods of determining the average depth of rainfall over
an area. Bring out the merits and demerits of each method.
12.Discuss the various procedures available to estimate the missing precipitation
records.
13.How is the double mass curve technique used to check the consistency and
adjust the rainfall record at a suspicious station?
14.Define raingauge density. Discuss the ISI norms for the raingauge density.
15.A basin has the area in the form of a pentagon with each side of
length 20 km as shown in figure. The five rainguages located at
the corners A, B, C, D and E have recorded 60, 81, 73, 59 and 45
mm of rainfall respectively. Compute the average depth of
rainfall over the basin by arithmetic mean and Thiessen polygon
methods.
16.The network of 10 stations in and around a river basin have the Thiessen
weights of 0.10, 0.06, 0.11, 0.07, 0.08, 0.11, 0.12, 0.16 and 0.10 respectively.
Stations 2, 4 and 5 lie outside the basin while the remaining are inside. If the
rainfalls recorded at these gauges during a storm are 150, 168, 158, 135,
156, 207, 138, 162, 114 and 132 mm respectively. Determine the average
depth of rainfall over the basin by arithmetic and Thiessen mean methods.

17.A major river basin is divided into four sub-basins with areas of 920, 705,
1075 and 1665 km2. If the average annual rainfall on these sub-basins is 73,
85, 112 and 100 cm respectively. What is the average annual rainfall for the
basin as a whole?
18.The isohyets drawn for a storm which occurred over a drainage basin of area
950 km2 yielded the following information.
Isohyets interval in mm
Area between isohyets
in km2

85 75

75 65

65 55

55 45

45 35

125

236

264

175

150

Determine the average depth of rainfall over the basin

19.During the month a raingauge went out of order while the other three gauges
in the basin reported rainfalls of 107, 89 and 120 mm. If the normal annual
rainfalls for these three gauges are 1120, 935 and 1200 mm respectively and
the normal annual rainfall of the broken gauge is 978 mm, estimate the
missing monthly rainfall at the broken gauge.
20.Neighbouring raingauge stations A, B, C, D, E and F have normal annual
rainfalls of 610, 554, 468, 606, 563 and 382 mm respectively. During a storm,
stations B, C, D, E and F have reported rainfalls of 22, 29, 35, 13 and 25 mm
respectively and station A did not report as it was inoperative. Estimate the
missing storm rainfall at A by the arithmetic average method and the normalratio method.
21.The average annual rainfall of 5 raingauges in a basin are 89, 54, 45, 41 and
55 cm. If the error in the estimation of basin mean rainfall should not exceed
10%, how many additional gauges should be installed in the basin?
22.The annual rainfalls at 7 raingauges stations in a basin are 58, 94, 60, 45, 20,
88 and 68 cm respectively. What is the percentage accuracy of the existing
network in the estimation of the average depth of rainfall over the basin?
How many additional gauges are required if it is desired to limit the error to
only 10%?
23.Define Evaporation ? Discuss the factors affecting evaporation.
24.Describe various methods of estimating evaporation from water bodies.
25.Derive the Penmans evaporation equation for open water surfaces. Explain
how Penmans equation differs from the other empirical equations.
26.Define pan coefficient. Discuss the relative merits and demerits of sunken,
floating and land pans.
27.Describe the ISI standard evaporation pan with a neat sketch. In what way it
is different from USWB class A land pan?
28.Bring
out
the
differences
between
evapotranspiration and consumptive use.

evaporation,

29.Discuss the various factors affecting evapotranspiration.

transpiration,

30.Distinguish between
evapotranspiration.

the

potential

evapotranspiration

and

the

actual

31.Explain how the evapotranspiration can be estimated using the BlaneyCriddle and Thronthwaire equations.
32.Explain the use of a lysimeter in measuring evapotranspiration.
33.How is evapotranspiration estimated using Penmans equation?
34.Estimate the evaporation from a free water surface on November 30 th from
the following data using Penmans equation:
Latitude of the place : 18 45 N ; Air temperature = 20C
Actual vapour pressure in air = 15.0 mm of mercury
Actual sunshine hours : 5.5 ; atmospheric pressure : 755 mm of mercury
Wind velocity 2 m above ground : 1.8 m/s
35.The mean monthly temperature during July to October at a place of latitude
10 N are 25.3, 24.1, 22.0 and 22.6 degrees C respectively. Determine the
consumptive use of vegetables grown during this period using BlanneyCriddle formula.
36.The mean monthly temperature at a place of latitude 10 N from January to
December are 20.5, 22.8, 28.8, 34.0, 35.1, 31.9, 30.1, 29.4, 29.0, 29.1, 25.0
and 21.1 degrees C respectively. Compute the evapotranspiration at this
place using the Thornthwaire equation for the months of April and December.
37.Define infiltration, percolation and infiltration capacity rate.
38.What are the factors affecting infiltration? Discuss their effect in producing
variation in infiltration rate during a storm, and also in producing seasonal
and spatial variations in infiltration rate.
39.Describe how infiltration capacity rate can be measured using a double ring
infiltrometer.
40.Discuss various infiltration equations. Explain how the constants fc, fo and k in
the Hortons equation can be obtained from the experimental data.
41.Define -index and W-index and bring out the difference between them. How
is -index determined from the rainfall hyetograph?
42.How is -index used in estimating the runoff from a storm? How is the
estimate of runoff affected by ignoring the initial loss?
43.An infiltration test conducted on a double ring infiltrometer with an inner ring
of diameter 30 cm yielded the following data
Time
in
minutes
Cumulativ
e vol. of
water
added
in

10

30

60

120

180

240

300

360

46

90

246

435

662

842

1000

1154

130
0

cm3
Determine the infiltration capacity rates for the time intervals in the test and
plot the variation of infiltration capacity rate with time.
44.A seven hour storm produced the following rainfall intensities (in mm/h) at
half an hour intervals over a basin of area 1830 km 2.
4, 9, 20, 18, 13, 11, 12, 2, 8, 16, 17, 13, 6 and 1
If the corresponding observed runoff is 36.6 million m 3, estimate the -index
for the storm.
45.A storm with a uniform intensity of 1.6 cm/h for a period of 8 hours occurring
over a basin of area 650 km 2 produced a runoff estimated to be 57.2 million
m3. Find the average infiltration rate during the storm.
46.The ordinates of a rainfall mass curve of a storm over a basin of area 850 km 2
measured in mm at one hour interval are
0, 10, 22, 30, 39, 45.5, 50, 55.5, 60, 64 and 68
If the infiltration during this storm can be represented by Hortons equation
with fo = 6.5 mm/h, fc = 1.5 mm/h and k = 0.15/h, estimate the resulting
runoff volume.
47.The Hortons infiltration equation for a basin is given by f = 10 + 30e-0.8t
where f is in mm/h and t is in hours. What are the values of fo, fc and k? if a
storm occurs on this basin with an intensity of more than 40 mm/h, determine
the depth of infiltration for the first one hour and the average infiltration rate
for the first two hours.
48.A storm during a dry weather has rainfall intensities of 8, 12, 40, 38, 30, 26,
28, 5, 16, 32, 36, 24, 14 and 4 mm/h at half an hour intervals. What is the
runoff volume from a basin area of 600 km2 if the initial abstractions are 10
mm and the -index for the basin is 10 mm/h?
What is the per cent error in runoff estimate if the initial abstractions are
neglected?
49.What do you understand by precipitation? Explain various types of
precipitation.
50.What is run-off? What are the factors that affect the run-off from a catchment
area?
51.What are the methods of computing run-off from a catchment area? Give
various formulae stating clearly the area for which each is applicable.
52.Explain various methods of determining flood discharge in a stream.
53.A precipitation station X was inoperative for some time during which a storm
occurred. The storm totals at three stations A, B and C surrounding X, were
respectively 6.60, 4.80 and 3.70 cm. The normal annual precipitation
amounts at stations X, A, B and C are respectively 65.6, 72.6, 51.8 and 38.2.
Estimate the storm precipitation for station P.

54.A 12-hour storm rainfall with the following depths in cm occurred over a
basin:
2.0, 2.5, 7.6, 3.8, 10.6, 5.0, 7.0, 10.0, 6.4, 3.8, 1.4 and 1.4.
The surface run-off resulting from the above storm is equivalent to 25.5 cm of
depth over the basin. Determine the average infiltration index for the basin