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Motivation
Studying stream response to water input events (catchment response) is important for: Water supply: Precipitation falling in the ground and then moving through stream networks represents a resource for agricultural, municipal and recreational water use. Flood prediction and forecasting: Flood forecasting, the design of dams, bridges and levees, and developing floodplain management plans requires knowing how streams will respond to precipitation events. Water quality: Water quality is strongly influenced by chemical and biological reactions as water moves over the land surface and then into streams.
Watershed hierarchy
Small watersheds (e.g., a few km2) can be part of bigger watersheds, and bigger watersheds can be part of even bigger watersheds. The example at right is the Patuxent river watershed, which drains in the Chesapeake Bay. The biggest watershed in the U.S.A. is the Mississippi watershed; our own Boulder Creek watershed (or drainage) is part of the South Platte drainage, which is part of the Missouri drainage, which is part of the Mississippi drainage.
http://www.uvm.edu/giee/AV/PUBS/HYDRO2/Pap_Hydro2.html
http://www.salemstate.edu/~lhanson/gls100/gls100_hydro.htm
http://czo.colorado.edu/html/sites.shtml
Stream order
Streams can be defined in terms of their order. The joining of two first-order streams creates a second-order stream. The joining of two second order streams creates a third-order stream, and so forth. This system was developed by Strahler (1952), modified from Horton (1945). The Ohio River is an 8th order stream, the Mississippi is a tenth order stream. The Amazon, the worlds largest river, is a 12th order stream. Anything 7th order and up is typically viewed as a river, but this is not a hard and fast rule in practice.
http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/wacademy/acad2 000/stream/stream11.html
Drainage patterns
Dendritic: The most common form. It develops in regions underlain by homogeneous material (the subsurface geology has a similar resistance to weathering so there is no apparent control over the direction the tributaries take). Tributaries join larger streams at acute angle (less than 90 degrees)
Parallel: Forms where there is a pronounced slope to the surface. A parallel pattern also develops in regions of parallel, elongate landforms like outcropping resistant rock bands. Tributary streams tend to stretch out in a parallel-like fashion following the slope of the surface. A parallel pattern sometimes indicates the presence of a major fault that cuts across an area of steeply folded bedrock. Trellis: Develops in folded topography like that found in the Appalachian Mountains of North America. Synclines form valleys where the main channel of the stream is found. Short tributary streams enter the main channel at sharp angles as they run down sides of parallel ridges (anticlines) Tributaries join the main stream at nearly right angles.
http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/fluvial_systems/drainage_patterns.html
Radial: Develop around a central elevated point. This pattern is common to conically shaped features such as volcanoes. The tributary streams extend the headward reaches upslope toward the top of the volcano.
Centripetal: The opposite of the radial as streams flow toward a central depression. Pattern is common in the Basin and Range province of the United States where many basins exhibit interior drainage.
Deranged: Develop from the disruption of a pre-existing drainage pattern, such as when a dendritic pattern is overrun by a glacier.
http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/fluvial_systems/drainage_p atterns.html
Measuring streamflow
Measuring streamflow (discharge) generally involves four steps: 1) Measuring stream stage: This involves continuous measurement of the height of the water surface at a location along a stream with reference to some established altitude (close to the stream bed) where the stage is defined as zero. Measuring discharge: Instruments are used to measure stream discharge A relationship is formed between measured stage and measured discharge Once the relationships is formed, then one can use stage information to get discharge. One must monitor the stage/discharge relationship as it may change.
2) 3) 4)
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/measureflow.html
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/streamflow3.html
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/streamflow3.html
Some terminology
Watershed, catchment, drainage basin: three names for the same thing Hydrograph: A graph of stream discharge at a point (x axis) by time (y axis) Hytograph: A graph of water input (y axis) versus time. Peak discharge: The value of maximum streamflow in response to a water input event that follows the hydrographic rise and is then followed by the hydrographjc recession.
watershed hydrograph
hytograph http://water.me.vccs.edu/math/tabular.htm
commons.wikimedia.org
http://echo2.epfl.ch/VICAIRE/mod_1b/chapt_2/main.htm
The water in a stream identified as the response to a given precipitation event can originate from only a small fraction of the watershed,; this fraction is termed the contributing area. For an event such as an isolated thunderstorms, the contributing area could be small (several km2); for a more general precipitation event, the contributing area can be much larger (hundreds of even thousands of km2 ), which, depending on the size of the watershed being considered, may cover most or all of the watershed. The extent of and location of the contributing area may change during the course of a precipitation event.
https://www.meted.ucar.edu
The figure at right shows hydrographs for a series of gauging stations progressively downstream along the Sleepers River in Danville VT in response to a intense rainfall event (hytograph at the top). Note how the hydrograph shape for the smallest (top) watershed is closely allied with the shape of the hytograph. Lower downstream, the hydrographs are increasingly affected by tributary inputs and storage effects of the stream channels , leading to an increase in the lag time between precipitation input and the hydrograph peaks, as well as smoother hydrographs.
Hydrograph separation
Streamflow can be separated into the contribution from event flow Qef taken to be the direct response to a given water input, and a base flow Qb not associated with a specific event, commonly (albeit not always correctly) assumed to be due to ground water inputs. The figure at right shows a hytograph for an isolated rainfall event of about 24 hours duration (Sleepers River, Danville VT) and the corresponding hydrograph. In this case, Qb could be estimated as the low flow before the rainfall event. However, in practice, separating Qb from Qef can be very difficult. For example, a stream might be still responding to a past precipitation event or series of events at the time when a new precipitation even occurs. Graphical separation methods and chemical tracers provide ways of separating base flow from event flow.
Event flow
For most regions, the ratio of event flow Qef to total rainfall W is considerably less that 0.5 and often less that 0.1. The figure at right shows the ratio expressed as a percentage for the southeastern United States. Note the strong spatial variability. These results indicate that much of the streamflow travels to streams via delayed routes as base flow, in large part due to regional groundwater flows
The analysis and modeling of event hytographs and response hydrographs involves a dedicated terminology
Hydrograph shape
Hydrograph shape and the terms describing hydrograph response in the previous figure are determined by storm size, watershed size, soils and geology, slope and land use. Consider the two situations at right. The lag time (the centroid lag TLC in the previous figure, taken as the time difference between the centroid of effective water input and centroid of the response hydrograph) is smaller over an urban watershed than over the agricultural watershed (we are considering response to the same hytograph in each case). This reflects the low hydraulic conductivity of the urban watershed (water falls on pavement, allowing for rapid surface runoff) compared to the agricultural watershed. In turn, the peak discharge is greater over the urban watershed.
http://web.cortland.edu/barclayj/hydrograph.jpg
Overland flow
Overland flow is produced by two basic mechanisms
1) Infiltration excess, or Hortonian Overland Flow (panel at left) results from saturation from above where the water input rate w(t) exceeds the saturation hydraulic conductivity K*h of the surface for a duration exceeding the time of ponding tp. 2) Saturation (or Dunne) Overland Flow (panel at right) results from saturation from below; water is added to the top, but the soil is saturated so that over land flow occurs. Saturation overland flow also includes return flow contributed by the breakout of ground water from upslope.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15157983@N00/211869881 http://www.meted.ucar.edu/
Within a given watershed, the extent of areas saturated from below varies widely with time, which is in large part responsible for the large variability of storm runoff observed in many regions. This is important for understanding and modeling event response. The example at right is for a drainage in central Vermont with gentle slopes and moderate to poorly drained soils. As is the area that is saturated.
Dingman 2002, Figure 9-23
Regional groundwater flow is usually the source of most streamflow (base flow) between event responses. While residence times of groundwater are generally too great to contribute to event flow, conditions may occur in which such subsurface flow enters a stream quickly enough to make a contribution. This in termed subsurface storm flow. The figure at right shows a situation with subsurface storm flow above impermeable bedrock.
http://www.meted.ucar.edu/
Drainage density is the total length of all streams in a watershed divided by the total area of the drainage basin. It depends upon climate and the physical characteristics of the drainage basin. Impermeable ground or exposed bedrock will lead to an increase in surface water runoff and higher density. Areas of steep topography also tend to have a higher drainage density than areas with gentle topography. Watersheds with a high drainage density have a shorter response time to a precipitation event and a sharper peak discharge.
http://iflorinsky.narod.ru/ti.htm
TOPMODEL (cont.)
The saturated hydraulic conductivity decreases exponentially with depth to near zero at the base on the soil. Subsurface flow qi at each location (i) in the watershed is treated using a modified version of Darcys law: qi = To.Si.exp(-di/M) Where To is the transmissivity of the soil when saturated to the surface and M characterizes the rate at which the conductivity decreases with depth. The local soil water storage deficit di (the value of the difference between the current soil water content and the saturated content) is linked to the watershed mean storage deficit <d> as di = <d> + M.(<TI> - TIi) Where the angle brackets denote the watershed mean The value of <d> is calculated at each time step by keeping track of the watershed water balance (precipitation, evaporation and outflow). At each time step, points capable of generating overland flow are those for which di equals zero.
TOPMODEL (cont.)
di = <d> + M.(<TI> - TIi) Points with a large drainage and small slope have high TI values these tend to correspond to near-stream areas and swales where water flow will tend to be convergent hence likely to produce saturation overland flow Points with a low TI (e.g., steep terrain) will tend to have divergent flow and not produce saturation overland flow TOPMODEL was developed in 1979 and has seem many developments and versions.
http://iflorinsky.narod.ru/ti.htm