Quantifying Long-Term Hydrologic Response in an Urbanizing Basin
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 12, Issue 1
Abstract
Long-term hydrologic response is described within a rapidly developing watershed west of Washington, D.C. Data consist of up to of observed rainfall, basin discharge, and land use/land cover from four headwater basins of the Occoquan River. Three of the four study basins, ranging in size from , are predominantly forest and mixed agriculture. The fourth basin, the Cub Run watershed, which is the focus of this study, has urbanized rapidly over the past (current impervious surface approximately 18%). Results indicate that Cub Run basin has higher annual and seasonal storm discharge per surface area than nonurban basins after 1983, when impervious surface in Cub Run basin reached approximately 9%. Only during the summer and fall is long-term storm runoff in Cub Run basin higher than nonurban basins. Long-term results support expected biophysical reductions in interception, infiltration, and evapotranspiration due to higher imperviousness, indicating that these reductions persist throughout the growing season, unlike adjacent nonurban areas.
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Acknowledgments
The writers acknowledge the financial support of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center and the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Collaborative support and data from the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory, the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Earth Science Applications Center, the Fairfax and Loudoun County GIS departments, and the Virginia Tech Center for Geospatial Information Technology made this study possible.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 12 • Issue 1 • January 2007
Pages: 33 - 41
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 12, 2004
Accepted: May 19, 2006
Published online: Jan 1, 2007
Published in print: Jan 2007
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