Estimates of Precipitation IDF Curves and Design Discharges for Road-Crossing Drainage Structures: Case Study in Four Small Forested Watersheds in the Southeastern US
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 26, Issue 4
Abstract
We compared precipitation intensity-duration-frequency (PIDF) curves developed for four small forested watersheds to spatially interpolated estimates from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Atlas-14. We also evaluated the Rational Method (RM) using on-site PIDFs and USGS Regional Regression Equations by comparing their estimated design discharges with a given exceedance probability () to values computed from on-site data fitted to the Log-Pearson (LPIII) distribution. Overall, NOAA’s PIDF estimates were not substantially different from the on-site PIDFs. The 25-year and larger by the RM were in closer alignment with LPIII estimates in the smaller watersheds, whereas by the USGS were a better fit for the larger ones in most cases. Adapting return period-dependent runoff coefficient improved estimates by the RM in the large lowland watershed, but not in the other smaller high-relief watersheds. We recommend RM with 1-h duration NOAA-PIDF for designing road drainage structures in small and possibly the USGS method for large forested watersheds. However, future studies should focus on validation in watersheds of different sizes and topography.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) and Region 8 for funding this study. The authors also wish to thank Shawna Reid at the SRS and former graduate student at North Carolina State University, Jessica Allen, for help with a map figure and data digitization, respectively. The authors also thank Maureen Stuart and Greta Langhenry at the SRS for editing help in the earlier version of the manuscript, Melissa Griffin at SC Department of Natural Resources for providing data from the Charleston Airport, SC, and Paul Moore, P.E. at Ward Edwards Engineering, SC, and Dr. Debabrata Sahoo, P.E. formerly at Woolpert, SC, for their constructive suggestions on parts of the revised manuscript. Last but not the least, the authors express their sincere thanks to the editor and all the anonymous reviewers for their patience and great constructive comments and suggestions that, we believe, helped to enhance the manuscript quality in this revision. Furthermore, the authors also thank the reviewers of earlier version of this manuscript. “The opinions presented in this article are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US Government determination or policy.”
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 26 • Issue 4 • April 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 23, 2019
Accepted: Oct 23, 2020
Published online: Jan 30, 2021
Published in print: Apr 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jun 30, 2021
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