Review of Time-of-Concentration Equations and a New Proposal in Italy
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 24, Issue 10
Abstract
The time of concentration is a fundamental parameter used for hydrological analysis in professional and scientific communities. The availability of equations for its estimation leads to significant variability and uncertainty. In this work, the most commonly used 24 equations were selected among the empirically based models to compare their estimates and to quantify the accuracy in predicting the time of concentration observed from 46 river basins in northern Italy. The practical definition for direct time of concentration estimation used in this work computes it as the time from the end of effective rainfall to the end of direct runoff on the recession limb of the total hydrograph. The results show a large discrepancy between the observed values and those estimated with the selected equations: the best performances are achieved by Bransby-Williams, Giandotti, Soil Conservation Service, Témez, and Ferro equations. The catchment classification into classes of basins with homogeneous climatological and physiographic characteristics shows that none of the analyzed equations significantly improves the predictions. Finally, a new equation is proposed for the area of the Upper Po River Basin that can significantly decrease the time-of-concentration estimation error.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to ARPA Regione Piemonte (Italy) for providing meteorological and hydrological observations.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 24 • Issue 10 • October 2019
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©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Nov 12, 2018
Accepted: Mar 20, 2019
Published online: Jul 30, 2019
Published in print: Oct 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Dec 30, 2019
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