Storm-Water Predictions by Dimensionless Unit Hydrograph
This article has a reply.
VIEW THE REPLYThis article has a reply.
VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 132, Issue 4
Abstract
This paper presents a theoretical derivation of a dimensionless unit hydrograph using the kinematic wave approach. The dimensionless kinematic wave unit hydrograph (KWUH) is normalized by the parameters associated with the equilibrium condition and can be generated according to the selected rainfall duration. For comparison, a KWUH whose rainfall duration is equal to the time of equilibrium produces good agreement with the Soil Conservation Service dimensionless unit graph (SCSUH). Both the KWUH and SCSUH are kinematic in nature and have a 37.5% runoff volume that occurred before the time to peak. To verify the applicability of the KWUH derived in this study, a set of hypothetical rectangular watersheds ranging from 20 to 200 acres was investigated. The predicted 100-year peak flow rates from these five hypothetical rectangular watersheds are compared with the SCSUH method and the Colorado Unit Hydrograph Procedures (CUHP). In general, the KWUH produces good agreement with the CUHP when the catchment has an area between 60 and 120 acres. Based on the study of hypothetical rectangular watersheds, it is recommended that the KWUH be applicable to urban catchments with a drainage area of up to 120 acres.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Bedient, P. B., and Huber, W. C. (1992). Hydrology and floodplain analysis, 2nd Ed., Addison-Wesley, New York.
Beuter, E. L., Gaebe, R. R., and Horton, R. E. (1940). “Sprinkled-plate runoff and infiltration experiments on Arizona desert soils.” Trans., Am. Geophys. Union, 550–558.
Chow, V. T. (1962). Handbook of applied hydrology, Chap. 17 and 21, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Chow, V. T., Maidment, D. R., and Mays, L. W. (1976). Applied hydrology, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Eagleson, P. S. (1970). Dynamic hydrology, McGraw-Hill, New York, 344–346.
Federal Highway Administration (FHwA). (1983). “Inlet design program.” Rep. No. FHWA/RD-83/043, Vol. 3, FHwA, Washington, D.C.
Guo, J. C. Y. (1998). “Overland flow on a pervious surface.” Int. J. Water, 23(2).
Guo, J. C. Y. (2000a). “A semi-virtual watershed model by neural networks.” J. Comput.-Aided Eng., Special Issue for Evolutionary and Neural Network Computing, Vol. 15.
Guo, J. C. Y. (2000b). “Storm hydrographs for small catchments.” Int. J. Water, 25(3).
Guo, J. C. Y. (2001). “Rational hydrograph method for small urban catchments.” J. Hydrologic Eng., 6(4).
Guo, J. C. Y., and Urbonas, B. (1988). “Colorado unit hydrograph procedures—Its synthetic unit hydrograph characteristics.” Proc., ASCE Conf. on Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, New York.
Lighthill, M. H., and Whitham, G. B. (1955). “On kinematic waves. I: Flood movement in long rivers.” Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A, 229, 281–316.
McCuen, R. H. (1982). A guide to hydrologic analysis using SCS methods, Prentice-Hall, New York.
Morgali, J. R. (1970). “Laminar and turbulent overland flow hydrographs.” J. Hydraul. Div., Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., 96(2), 441–360.
Sherman, L. K. (1932). “Streamflow from rainfall by the unit-graph method.” Eng. News-Rec., 108 501–505.
Snyder, W. M. (1955). “Hydrograph analysis by the method of least squares.” Proc. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., 81, 1–25.
Soil Conservation Service (SCS). (1957). Use of storm and watershed characteristics in synthetic hydrograph analysis and application, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
Soil Conservation Service (SCS). (1972). SCS national engineering handbook, Section 4: Hydrology, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
Soil Conservation Service (SCS). (1986). “Urban hydrology for small watersheds.” Technical Release No. 55. NTIS PB87-101580, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
Urbonas, B. (1979). “Reliability of design storms in modeling.” Proc., Int. Symp. on Urban Storm Runoff, Univ. of Kentucky, July 23–26, Lexington, Ky.
Urban Drainage and Flood Control District (Urban). (2001). Urban storm water drainage criteria manual, Urban Drainage and Flood Control District, Denver.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (1985). HEC-1 flood hydrograph package, Hydrologic Engineering Center, Davis, Calif.
Wooding, R. A. (1965). “A hydraulic model for a catchment-stream problem.” J. Hydrol., 3 254–267.
Woolhiser, D. A., and Liggett, J. A. (1967). “Unsteady one-dimensional flow over a plane—The rising hydrograph.” Water Res., 3(3), 753–771.
Yen, B. C., and Chow, V. T. (1974). “Experimental investigation of watershed surface runoff.” Hydraulic Engineering Series, No. 29, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ill.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 19, 2004
Accepted: Oct 27, 2005
Published online: Aug 1, 2006
Published in print: Aug 2006
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.