Separating Infiltration and Runoff from Precipitation over the Anacostia River Watershed, Maryland
Publication: World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024
ABSTRACT
One of the most important environmental problems, rainfall-induced landslides have increased due to climate change and heavy rainfall. In most of the previous landslide studies, researchers often resort to simplifications, such as assuming that all precipitation effectively infiltrates the ground or approximating the infiltration amount as a fixed percentage of the total rainfall, regardless of how these approximations can lead to inaccurate results and outcomes. Therefore, it is important to gain a understanding how much rainfall infiltrates the ground because it helps researchers gain insight into what is the threshold amount of infiltrated water that can potentially saturate the soil on the slope, triggering landslides. To address this challenge, our study utilized the SWAT model to simulate the intricate interplay among rainfall, surface runoff, and infiltration over the slopes. This model was applied from 2015 to 2022 in the Anacostia River watershed in Maryland, USA, as a case study to separate the amounts of runoff and infiltration from rainfall. We used NSE and RSR to evaluate the model performance. The results show the acceptable accuracy of the model in rainfall-runoff simulation. Engineers and managers can use this model to better estimate amount of infiltration from rainfall as a threshold in the risk assessment of future rainfall-induced landslides.
Get full access to this chapter
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Arnold, J. G., Moriasi, D. N., Gassman, P. W., Abbaspour, K. C., White, M. J., Srinivasan, R., and Jha, M. K. (2012). SWAT: Model use, calibration, and validation. Transactions of the ASABE, 55(4), 1491–1508.
Akoko, G., Le, T. H., Gomi, T., and Kato, T. (2021). A review of SWAT model application in Africa. Water, 13(9), 1313.
Cardoso de Salis, H. H., Monteiro da Costa, A., Moreira Vianna, J. H., Azeneth Schuler, M., Künne, A., Sanches Fernandes, L. F., and Leal Pacheco, F. A. (2019). Hydrologic modeling for sustainable water resources management in urbanized karst areas. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(14), 2542.
Cevasco, A., Pepe, G., and Brandolini, P. (2014). The influences of geological and land use settings on shallow landslides triggered by an intense rainfall event in a coastal terraced environment. Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, 73, 859–875.
Chen, R. H., Chen, H. P., Chen, K. S., and Zhung, H. B. (2009). Simulation of a slope failure induced by rainfall infiltration. Environmental Geology, 58, 943–952.
Devereux, O. H., Prestegaard, K. L., Needelman, B. A., and Gellis, A. C. (2010). Suspended‐sediment sources in an urban watershed, Northeast Branch Anacostia River, Maryland. Hydrological Processes: An International Journal, 24(11), 1391–1403.
Gassman, P. W., Reyes, M. R., Green, C. H., and Arnold, J. G. (2007). The soil and water assessment tool: historical development, applications, and future research directions. Transactions of the ASABE, 50(4), 1211–1250.
Gassman, P. W., Sadeghi, A. M., and Srinivasan, R. (2014). Applications of the SWAT model special section: overview and insights. Journal of Environmental Quality, 43(1), 1–8.
Glade, T., Anderson, M. G., and Crozier, M. J., eds. (2005). Landslide hazard and risk (Vol. 807). Chichester: Wiley.
Green, W. H., and Ampt, G. A. (1911). Studies on Soil Phyics. The Journal of Agricultural Science, 4(1), 1–24.
He, W., Ishikawa, T., and Yulong, Z. H. U. (2023). Wide/narrow-area slope stability analysis considering infiltration and runoff during heavy precipitation. Soils and Foundations, 63(1), 101248.
Hwang, H. M., and Foster, G. D. (2006). Characterization of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urban stormwater runoff flowing into the tidal Anacostia River, Washington, DC, USA. Environmental Pollution, 140(3), 416–426.
Liu, Q., Su, L., Zhang, C., Hu, B., and Xiao, S. (2022). Dynamic variations of interception loss-infiltration-runoff in three land-use types and their influence on slope stability: An example from the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Journal of Hydrology, 612, 128218.
McNaughton, K. G., and Jarvis, P. G. (1984). Using the Penman-Monteith equation predictively. Agricultural Water Management, 8(1-3), 263–278.
Mishra, S. K., and Singh, V. (2003). Soil conservation service curve number (SCS-CN) methodology (Vol. 42). Springer Science & Business Media.
Moriasi, D. N., Arnold, J. G., Van Liew, M. W., Bingner, R. L., Harmel, R. D., and Veith, T. L. (2007). Model evaluation guidelines for systematic quantification of accuracy in watershed simulations. Transactions of the ASABE, 50(3), 885–900.
Mukhlisin, M., and Taha, M. R. (2012). Numerical model of antecedent rainfall effect on slope stability at a hillslope of weathered granitic soil formation. Journal of the Geological Society of India, 79, 525–531.
Neitsch, S. L., Arnold, J. G., Kiniry, J. R., and Williams, J. R. (2011). Soil and water assessment tool theoretical documentation version 2009. Texas Water Resources Institute.
Özçelik, F. V., and Selçuk, M. E. (2022). Parametric Analysis of Factors that Affects the Rainfall Induced Slope Stability. Turkish Journal of Geosciences, 3(2), 49–57.
Paerl, H. W., Hall, N. S., Hounshell, A. G., Rossignol, K. L., Barnard, M. A., Luettich, R. A., and Harding, L. W. (2020). Recent increases of rainfall and flooding from tropical cyclones (TCs) in North Carolina (USA): implications for organic matter and nutrient cycling in coastal watersheds. Biogeochemistry, 150, 197–216.
Qi, J., Lee, S., Zhang, X., Yang, Q., McCarty, G. W., and Moglen, G. E. (2020). Effects of surface runoff and infiltration partition methods on hydrological modeling: A comparison of four schemes in two watersheds in the Northeastern US. Journal of Hydrology, 581, 124415.
Rahardjo, H., Nistor, M. M., Gofar, N., Satyanaga, A., Xiaosheng, Q., and Chui Yee, S. I. (2020). Spatial distribution, variation and trend of five-day antecedent rainfall in Singapore. Georisk: Assessment and Management of Risk for Engineered Systems and Geohazards, 14(3), 177–191.
Rostamian, R., Jaleh, A., Afyuni, M., Mousavi, S. F., Heidarpour, M., Jalalian, A., and Abbaspour, K. C. (2008). Application of a SWAT model for estimating runoff and sediment in two mountainous basins in central Iran. Hydrological sciences journal, 53(5), 977–988.
Singh, J., Knapp, H. V., and Demissie, M. (2004). Hydrologic Modeling of the Iroquois River Watershed Using HSPF and SWAT. Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois State Geological Survey.
Tung, Y. K., Zhang, H., Ng, C. W. W., and Kwok, Y. F. (2004). Transient seepage analysis of rainfall infiltration using a new conjunctive surface-subsurface flow model. In Proceedings of the 57th Canadian Geotechnical Conference and the 5th Joint CGS-IAH Conference (Vol. 7, pp. 17–22).
USDA Soil Conservation Service. (1972). National engineering handbook, section 4: Hydrology. Washington, DC.
Warner, A., Shepp, D., Corish, K., and Galli, J. (1997). An existing source assessment of pollutants to the Anacostia watershed.
Widmoser, P. (2009). A discussion on an alternative to the Penman–Monteith equation. Agricultural Water Management, 96(4), 711–721.
Williams, J. R., Arnold, J. G., Kiniry, J. R., Gassman, P. W., and Green, C. H. (2008). History of model development at Temple, Texas. Hydrological sciences journal, 53(5), 948–960.
Williams, J. R., Kannan, N., Wang, X., Santhi, C., and Arnold, J. G. (2012). Evolution of the SCS runoff curve number method and its application to continuous runoff simulation. Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, 17(11), 1221–1229.
Wu, L., and Zhou, J. (2023). Rainfall Infiltration in Unsaturated Soil Slope Failure (p. 130). Springer Nature.
Zêzere, J. L., Trigo, R. M., and Trigo, I. F. (2005). Shallow and deep landslides induced by rainfall in the Lisbon region (Portugal): assessment of relationships with the North Atlantic Oscillation. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 5(3), 331–344.
Zhang, J., Huang, H. W., Zhang, L. M., Zhu, H. H., and Shi, B. (2014). Probabilistic prediction of rainfall-induced slope failure using a mechanics-based model. Engineering Geology, 168, 129–140.
Zhang, L., Wu, F., Zhang, H., Zhang, L., and Zhang, J. (2019). Influences of internal erosion on infiltration and slope stability. Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, 78, 1815–1827.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024
Pages: 1595 - 1607
History
Published online: May 16, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Climates
- Disaster risk management
- Disasters and hazards
- Environmental engineering
- Geohazards
- Geotechnical engineering
- Hydrologic engineering
- Hydrology
- Infiltration
- Landslides
- Meteorology
- Natural disasters
- Precipitation
- Rain water
- Rainfall
- Rainfall-runoff relationships
- River engineering
- River systems
- Runoff
- Water (by type)
- Water and water resources
- Water management
- Watersheds
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.