Tennant Concept Coupled with Standardized Precipitation Index for Environmental Flow Prediction from Rainfall
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 2
Abstract
By coupling the standardized precipitation index (SPI), frequently used as a meteorological drought index, with the Tennant concept, popularly used in environmental flow (EF) assessment, this paper attempts to predict the EF condition of a catchment using easily available rainfall data only, which is useful for ungauged catchments. Its application is demonstrated using the data of three catchments of the Mahanadi Basin (Ghatora, Kurubhata, and Salebhata), two catchments of the Brahmani-Baitarini Basin (Anandpur and Jaraikela), two catchments of the Godavari Basin (Hivra and Nandgaon), and four catchments of the Narmada Basin (Mohegaon, Hridaynagar, Manot, and Sher), which fall in subtropical and subhumid climatic regions of India. A coefficient of determination of more than 0.7 for most of the catchments showed the existence of a relationship between SPI and % average annual flow (AAF) (used to describe the EF condition). Therefore, the EF condition of the previously named catchments can be ascertained using SPI derived from easily available rainfall data.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, for providing all resources during the course of study, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Government of India, New Delhi, for financial support to the first author.
References
Brisbane Declaration. (2007). “The Brisbane declaration: Environmental flows are essential for freshwater ecosystem health and human well-being.” Brisbane, Australia.
Byun, H. R., and Wilhite, D. A. (1999). “Objective quantification of drought severity and duration.” J. Clim., 12(9), 2747–2756.
Deshmukh, D. S., Chaube, U. C., Tignath, S., and Tripathi, S. K. (2010). “Morphological analysis of Sher River basin using GIS for identification of erosion-prone areas.” Ecohydrol. Hydrobiol., 10(2), 307–313.
Edwards, D. C., and McKee, T. B. (1997). “Characteristics of 20th century drought in the United States at multiple scales.”, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO.
Hatfield, T., Lewis, A., Ohlson, D., and Bradford, M. (2003). “Development of instream flow thresholds as guidelines for reviewing proposed water uses.” British Columbia Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Jacobsen, D., Milner, A., Brown, L., and Dangles, O. (2012). “Biodiversity under threat in glacier-fed river systems.” Nat. Clim. Change, 2(5), 361–364.
Jain, S. K., Agarwal Pushpendra, K., and Singh Vijay, P. (2007). “Narmada Basin.” Hydrology and water resources of India, Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 513–559.
Kirby, J. M., Connor, J., Ahmad, M. D., Gao, L., and Mainuddin, M. (2014). “Climate change and environmental water reallocation in the Murray-Darling Basin: Impacts on flows, diversions and economic returns to irrigation.” J. Hydrol., 518, 120–129.
Mann, J. L. (2006). “Instream flow methodologies: An evaluation of the Tennant method for higher gradients streams in national forest system land in western U.S.” M.Tech. thesis, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO.
Mazvimavi, D., Madamombe, E., and Makuria, H. (2007). “Assessment of environmental flow requirements for river basin planning in Zimbabwe.” Phys. Chem. Earth, 32(15–18), 995–1006.
McKee, T. B., Doesken, N. J., and Kleist, J. (1993). “The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales.” Proc., 8th Conf. on Applied Climatology, American Meteorological Society, Anaheim, CA.
Mishra Ashok, K., and Singh, V. P. (2010). “A review of drought concepts.” J. Hydrol., 391(1–2), 202–216.
Morid, S., Smakhtin, V., and Moghaddas, M. (2006). “Comparison of seven meteorological indices for drought monitoring in Iran.” Int. J. Climatol., 26(7), 971–985.
Poff, N. L. (2009). “Managing for variability to sustain freshwater ecosystems.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 135(1), 1–4.
Tennant, D. L. (1975). “Instream flow regimens for fish, wildlife, recreation and related environmental resources.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Billings, MT.
Tennant, D. L. (1976a). “Instream flow regimens for fish, wildlife, recreation and related environmental resources.” Proc., Symp. and Specialty Conf. on Instream Flow Needs, J. F. Orsborn and C. H. Allman, eds., American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.
Tennant, D. L. (1976b). “Instream flow regimens for fish, wildlife, recreation, and related environmental resources.” Fisheries, 1(4), 6–10.
Tharme, R. E. (2003). “A global perspective on environmental flow assessment: emerging trends in the development and application of environmental flow methodologies for rivers.” River Res. Appl., 19(5–6), 397–441.
Thom, H. C. (1958). “A note on the gamma distribution.” Monthly Weather Rev., 86(4), 117–122.
Van Vliet, M. T. H., et al. (2013). “Global river discharge and water temperature under climate change.” Glob. Environ. Change, 23(2), 450–464.
Vörösmarty, C. J., et al. (2010). “Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity.” Nature, 467(7315), 555–561.
Wang, R., and Lu, X. (2009). “Quantitative estimation models and their application of ecological water use at a basin scale.” Water Resour. Manage., 23(7), 1351–1365.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 23 • Issue 2 • February 2018
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 23, 2017
Accepted: Jul 18, 2017
Published online: Nov 28, 2017
Published in print: Feb 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Apr 28, 2018
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.