Chapter – Two

Runoff-Rainfall
Relationship
 2.1 Introduction
• Runoff means the draining or flowing off of precipitation from a
catchment area by a surface channel enters into a stream.
• It occurs when there is more water than land can absorb.
• It represents the output from catchment in a given unit of time.
It has three components:
Flow above the soil - Overland flow
Flow at the upper crusts of the soil that returns to the surface
– Interflow
Flow deeply below the soil - Groundwater flow

 Based on the time delay between the precipitation and

the runoff, the runoff is classified into two categories
as:
(a) Direct runoff: part of runoff which enters the stream
immediately after the rainfall.
E.g. surface runoff, prompt interflow

(a) +
 2.2 Runoff Computation

Runoff Computation/
Estimation Methods

Indirect
Methods Direct Methods
(Equations) (Measurements)
 Infiltration Indices

CN (SCS) method Rational method

Indirect
Methods Unit Hydrograph

Manning’s method

Time-Area method
• How we measure Runoff (Stream flow)
directly ?

Float

Buckets

Direct Staff gauge

Methods

Salt gulp
Current meters
 1) Rational Method

 Widely used around the world for flood

estimation on small rural watersheds (<5000
ha) and for urban drainage design (in the
design of small culvert and bridges)

 To determining discharges from measurements

of rainfall depth

 Consider a rainfall of uniform intensity and

very long duration occurring over a basin
 Cont…
•Designating the time taken for a drop of water from
the farthest part of the catchment to reach the outlet as
tc – time of concentration

•it is obvious that if the rainfall continuous beyond tc,

the runoff will be constant and at the peak value

•the peak value of the rainfall is given by:

C- runoff coefficient (runoff/rainfall)
dependent on catchment characteristics
1 A – drainage area in Km2
QP  CAi ; for t  t C i – the mean intensity of precipitation
3.6 (mm/hr) for a duration equal to tc and an
exceedence of probability P
  Runoff coefficient (C)
• Dependent on the character and condition of the
soil.
• Infiltration rate decreases as rainfall continues,
and is also influenced by the antecedent
moisture condition of the soil.

• Other factors influencing the runoff coefficient

are rainfall intensity, proximity of the water table,
degree of soil compaction, porosity of the subsoil,
vegetation cover, ground slope, and depression
storage.
 Values of runoff coefficient (C)
Type of Area Value of C
A. Urban area
Lawns: Sandy-soil, flat, 2% 0.05 – 0.10
Sandy-soil, Steep, 7% 0.15 – 0.20
Sandy-soil, average, 2.7% 0.18 – 0.22
Residential Areas:
Single family areas 0.30 – 0.50
Multi units, attached 0.60 – 0.75
Industrial:
Light 0.50 – 0.80
Heavy 0.60 – 0.90
Streets 0.70 – 0.95

B. Agricultural Area
Flat: Tight clay; cultivated 0.50
woodland 0.40
Sandy loam; cultivated 0.20
woodland 0.10
Hilly: Tight clay; cultivated 0.70
woodland 0.60
Sandy loam; cultivated 0.40.
woodland 0.30
  Weighted equivalent runoff coefficient Ce
N Where: - Ai is the aerial extent of the sub
C i Ai basin i having a runoff coefficient
Ce  1
Ci and N is the number of sub
A basin in the drainage area

 Rainfall Intensity (i)

• The rainfall intensity(i) is the average rainfall rate for a
particular drainage basin or sub basin.

• The rainfall intensity corresponding to a duration tc and

the desired probability of exceedance P (i.e. return period
Tr = 1/P) is found from the rainfall – frequency duration
relationship for the given catchment area. C Tr
d
i 
t  a b
  Time of concentration (tc)
• Empirical equations
– Kirpich Equation (1940)

0.77 0.385
tc  0.01947 L S

Where: tc is time of concentration (minutes),

L is maximum length of travel of water (m),
S is slope of the catchment equal to delta H to L in which
delta H is the difference in elevation between the most
remote point on catchment and the outlet.
 Example – I
• An urban catchment has an area of 0.85km2. The slope
of the catchment is 0.006 and the maximum length of
travel of water is 950m. The maximum depth of
rainfall with a 25 years return period is as below.

Duration (min) 5 10 20 30 40 60
Depth of rainfall (mm) 17 26 40 50 57 62

 If a culvert for drainage at the outlet of this area is to

be designed for a return period of 25 years, estimate
the required peak – flow rate, by assuming the runoff
coefficient as 0.30.
 Solution
0.77 0.385
tc  0.01947 L S
0.77 0.385
tc  0.01947(950) (0.006)
•tc = 27.4 min.
•Maximum depth of rainfall for 27.4min duration is obtained
by interpolation from the given rainfall duration, and RF =
47.4mm.
•Since, average RF duration is equal to tc to calculate
intensity (I) of rainfall.
• I = RF/tc = (47.4/27.4)*60(mm/hr) = 103.8mm/hr.
•Thus, peak flow (Qp) = 0.278*0.3*103.8*0.85
= 7.36 m3/s
 Example – II
• If the urban area of the above example, the
land use of the area and the corresponding
runoff coefficients are as given table below,
calculate the equivalent runoff coefficient
Land Use Area (ha) Runoff coefficient
Roads 8 0.70
Lawn 17 0.10
Residential area 50 0.30
Industrial area 10 0.80
N

C i Ai
Ce  1 Ans: Ce = 0.36
A
 2) SCS/ Curve Number
Methods
• Widely used for estimating floods on small to medium-
sized drainage basins around the world

• Is rainfall-runoff model that transforms rainfall in to

runoff through considering the different properties of
the watershed.

Q
P  0.2 S 
2
, P  0.2 S
P  0.8S
Where:
S = Potential maximum
retention
Q = Actual runoff
P = Rainfall
•Further, Q = 0 for P ≤ 0.2S. And, for operation purpose a time
interval ∆t = 1 day is adapted. Thus, P = daily rainfall and Q = daily
runoff from the catchment

•S is determined from watershed area X-tices, i.e., from curve

number (CN) which is ranges from 0 to 100 and depend on
Antecedent Moisture Condition (AMC).

25400
CN 
S  254

• The value of CN for a different land use

condition and hydrologic soil groups, are given
standard table
• The values are applied to antecedent moisture condition II ONLY (i.e., the average condition). To get the CN value for other AMCs I & III, the
correction factors are applied

• If the watershed has different land use practice, treatment adopted and hydrologic condition, use weighted CN:
Example: Calculate the depth of direct runoff for 50 years
recurrence interval from a watershed for AMC-I. The
watershed having total 50 ha area is divided into two parts,
one of 40 ha area is engaged under row crops on
contoured /terraced land with poor hydrologic condition
and the remaining 10 ha area is under pasture range land on
contoured farming practices with poor hydrologic condition.
The soil of the watershed falls under C hydrologic soil
group. Assume the value of rainfall occurred for 6-hr
duration, against 50 years recurrence interval is 15 cm.

Solution
•P = 15 cm
•A = 50 ha (A1 = 40 & A2 = 10)
•Q = direct runoff for AMC-I?
 This value of CNw is valid for AMC=II, hence in order to get CNw for
AMC=I;

 Potential maximum water retained in the watershed S in cm:

 3) Hydrograph analysis
• Hydrograph is a plot of flow (discharge) in a
stream with time.
Discharge, Q

Time, t
• It is the most widely method used of analyzing
surface runoff.
• It describes the whole time history of the changing rate of flow
from a catchment due to rainfall event rather than predicting
only the peak flow.
• Hydrograph is plotted by measuring the runoff at
the watershed outlet/stream gauging station.

Essential Components:
i. Rising Limb
ii. Crest Segment
iii. Recession/Falling Limb
Other components:
tp = Time to peak (starts from point A)
tL = Lag time, time interval from the Centre of mass of
rainfall to the Centre of mass of hydrograph
tB = Time base of the hydrograph
 3) Hydrograph
A plot of the discharge in a stream plotted against time
chronologically. Depending upon the unit of time involved,
we have:

 Annual hydrographs: showing the variation of daily or

weekly or 10 days daily mean flows over a year

 Monthly hydrographs: showing the variation of daily

earn flows over a month

 Seasonal hydrographs: represent the variation of the

discharge in a particular season such as the monsoon
season or dry season

 Flood hydrographs: due to storm representing stream

flow due to a storm over a catchment
 a) Unit Hydrograph

the hydrograph of direct runoff

resulting from one unit depth
(1cm) of rainfall excess occurring
Definition uniformly over the basin and at
a uniform rate for a specified
duration (D hours).
 Example
• In a typical 4hr storm producing 50mm of excess rain
from a basin, the following flows in the stream, are
recorded.

a) Plot the unit hydrograph of runoff for this storm.

b) Estimate, the peak flow and the time of its occurrence, in a flood
created by a 8 hours storm which produces 2.5cm effective
rainfall during the 1st 4 hrs and 3.75cm of effective rainfall
during the 2nd 4 hrs.
• Assume the base flow to be negligible.
 Solution
• 1st plot using the various given values of time and flow.

• 2ndly to get unit hydrograph we have to divide the flow by 5cm.

 b) S-Curve Hydrograph
 A hydrograph produced by a continuous effective
rainfall at a constant rate for an infinite period.

 Is a continuously rising curve, which ultimately

attains a constant value, when equilibrium
discharge is reached.

 It can be used to obtain the unknown hydrograph

of any given duration.
• The S-curve is computed using the following scheme:
– S1 = U1
– S2 = U1+ U2 = U2+S1
– S3 = U1+ U2+ U3 = U3 +S2 …
 Example
• The ordinates of the 1-h unit hydrograph of a
catchment area are summarized in Table below

a) Derive the S-Curve for the catchment

b) Use the S-Curve to obtain the 2-h unit hydrograph
Solution
(a)
(b)
CHAPTER
END