Front Matter

(As developed by the ASCE Technical Procedures Committee, July 1930, and revised March 1935, February 1962, and April 1982)

A manual or report in this series consists of an orderly presentation of facts on a particular subject, supplemented by an analysis of limitations and applications of these facts. It contains information useful to the average engineer in his or her everyday work, rather than findings that may be useful only occasionally or rarely. It is not in any sense a “standard,” however; nor is it so elementary or so conclusive as to provide a “rule of thumb” for nonengineers.

Furthermore, material in this series, in distinction from a paper (which expresses only one person’s observations or opinions), is the work of a committee or group selected to assemble and express information on a specific topic. As often as practicable the committee is under the direction of one or more of the Technical Divisions and Councils, and the product evolved has been subjected to review by the Executive Committee of the Division or Council. As a step in the process of this review, proposed manuscripts are often brought before the members of the Technical Divisions and Councils for comment, which may serve as the basis for improvement. When published, each work shows the names of the committees by which it was compiled and indicates clearly the several processes through which it has passed in review, so that its merit may be definitely understood.

In February 1962 (and revised in April 1982), the Board of Direction voted to establish a series titled “Manuals and Reports on Engineering Practice,” to include the Manuals published and authorized to date, future Manuals of Professional Practice, and Reports on Engineering Practice. All such Manual or Report material of the Society would have been refereed in a manner approved by the Board Committee on Publications and would be bound, with applicable discussion, in books similar to past Manuals. Numbering would be consecutive and would be a continuation of present Manual numbers. In some cases of joint committee reports, bypassing of Journal publications may be authorized.

This manual on radar rainfall data estimation was developed as one of the several tasks that was undertaken by the Radar Rainfall Data and Application Task Committee, under the Surface Water Hydrology Technical Committee within the Watershed Council of Environmental and Water Resources Institute’s (EWRI), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

This manual was developed primarily for use by the practicing water resources engineers in the industry. This manual has nine chapters and their titles and authors are shown as follows.

Chapter 1: Radar Rainfall Estimation, Chandra S. Pathak (US Army Corps of Engineers);

Chapter 2: Radar Rainfall Data: Temporal and Spatial Characteristics, Chandra S. Pathak (US Army Corps of Engineers) and David C. Curtis (WEST Consultants);

Chapter 3: Radar Rainfall Data Processing, David Kitzmiller (National Weather Service);

Chapter 4: Evaluation and Improvement of Radar Rainfall Data, Ramesh S.V. Teegavarapu (Florida Atlantic University);

Chapter 5: Use of Radar Rainfall Data in Hydrologic Modeling, David C. Curtis (WEST Consultants);

Chapter 6: Examples in Radar Rainfall Data, Analyses, and Applications, Chandra S. Pathak (US Army Corps of Engineers);

Chapter 7: Advanced Topic: Framework for Bias Analysis of Radar Data, Ramesh S.V. Teegavarapu (Florida Atlantic University);

Chapter 8: Advanced Topic: Rain-Gauge Rainfall Data Augmentation and Radar Rainfall Data Analysis, Ramesh S.V. Teegavarapu (Florida Atlantic University);

Chapter 9: Advanced Topic: Design of Rainfall Monitoring Networks, Ramesh S.V. Teegavarapu (Florida Atlantic University).

The Blue-Ribbon Panel of reviewers was established by the Watershed Council of EWRI and approved by the Technical Executive Committee of EWRI. The Blue-Ribbon Panel Review members were Dr. Scott Huebner, P.E. (South Florida Water Management District); Mr. Michael DelCharco, P.E. (Taylor Engineering, Inc.); and Mr. David Preusch, P.E. (WEST Consultants, Inc.). The drafts of the manual were reviewed by individuals chosen for their diverse perspective and technical expertise in accordance with the procedures approved for ASCE’s Manual of Practice. The purpose of this independent review was to provide candid and critical comments that assist EWRI in making this publication as sound as possible and to ensure that the manual meets ASCE institutional standards in science and engineering and usability by the practicing engineers.

The authors wish to thank the following individuals for their reviews of this manual: Dr. Scott Huebner, P.E. (South Florida Water Management District); Mr. Michael DelCharco, P.E. (Taylor Engineering, Inc.); Mr. David Preusch, P.E. (WSP USA and formerly with WEST Consultants, Inc.); Dr. Thomas Evans (US Army Corps of Engineers); and Dr. Daniel Wright (University of Wisconsin—Madison and formerly with Princeton University).