Hydraulic Construction 2

Drainage Basins and Channel Network

Class Rules

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Be on Time
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Be courteous/respectful
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Be open
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No Judgement
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No plagiarism
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Phones off or on silence
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No laptops

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Course Objectives

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Understand the behavior of rivers and sediment
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Understand the behavior of river beds and channel
changes
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Develop a working knowledge of sediment transport
and erosion
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Present hydraulic problems of bridges and levees
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Present Infiltration problems in earth dams such as
piping and seepage
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Course Testing Kit

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Attendance – 10 pts
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Continuous Assessment - 20 pts
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Final Exam – 70 pts

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Course Outline

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Basin Characteristics
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Soil Erosion and Sediment Yield
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Hydraulics of Alluvial Streams
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Bed Level Variation in Streams
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Scour and Scour Protection
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Check Dams
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Infiltration Problems/Riverbank Stability
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Bridge Hydraulic Problems
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Some problems in river morphology

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Dam construction causes the sediment transport capacity upstream of the dam to
reduce thereby causing aggradation in the main reservoir and also in the tributaries
on the upstream. This has many undesirable effects including depletion of reservoir
capacity and flooding of the upstream areas. In some cases such as the Imperial
dam on the Colorado river and Bhakra dam on the Sutlej in India sediment deposition
has been found to occur 70-80 km upstream of the dam.
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The water released from the reservoir is almost sediment free and hence it
picks up sediment from the bed and banks of the stream causing degradation
over long reaches of the stream.
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Construction of flood control works such as embankments, reservoirs, channel
straightening, meander cut-offs and channel improvement also tend to disturb the
equilibrium of the stream and needs careful study.

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Some problems in river morphology

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Change in drainage basin characteristics due to change in land use such as deforestation,
reforestation, agricultural land development, road construction, urbanization, and building
of dams and check-dams disturb the river equilibrium by changing runoff and sediment
load and trigger changes in the channel characteristics. As a result the sediment load of
the streams is often increased dramatically. Wolman and Schick (1967) recorded up to
50,000 tons/km2 /yr sediment load at one site, as compared to 80-200 tons/km2 /yr under
normal conditions.
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Drainage Basins

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Drainage basin is an area drained by the stream and its
tributaries. It is bounded by a divide. Drainage basin is
also sometimes called watershed or catchment area.
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The present form of any drainage basin is the result of the
processes that have operated in the past on the material
available locally. These processes at the basin level are
the precipitation and runoff, sediment yield and rate of
erosion. However, these processes in the past may not be
the same in their relative importance as the ones that
operate in the drainage basin at present.
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The importance of studying the drainage basin
characteristics derives from the need of studying forms of
channels and channel networks as they are related to
physical characteristics of the drainage basin, and also
from the need of relating physical characteristics of the
basin to flow characteristics and sediment yield.

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River Basin Characteristics

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River-basin characteristics include topography and physiography, geology
and pedology, forestry and climatology. Watershed boundaries are
separated by drainage divides located at high points between
watersheds.

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Lines of constant elevation are called contour lines.

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Rivers follow the low points along the watershed topographic profiles.

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Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are helpful for watershed
delineation, topography and mapping slope, soil type, and land use.

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Contour Lines

Lines of constant elevation are called contour lines.

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Drainage Basins in Cameroon

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The Logone and its tributaries, draining the
extreme north to Lake Chad.
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The Benue and its tributaries (The Faro, the
Mandara, the Alantika Kebi and the Mayo)
draining the north to the Niger River.
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The Ngoko and Kadei rivers, draining
southeast towards the Sangha (a tributary of
the Congo)
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The main rivers of the center and west,
flowing into the Atlantic: the Sanaga (the
longest river in the country), Nyong, Ntem,
Mungo and Wouri.

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Major watershed of Yaounde: the Mfoundi

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Surface Area =
approximatively
95km2
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95% urbanized
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Covers almost the
entire city of
Yaounde.

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Drainage network

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Since the sediment eroded from the drainage basin along with water causing
erosion, flows through the tributaries and the main stream, the drainage net is
intimately associated with the hydraulic geometry of the stream channels and their
longitudinal profile.
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The topographic characteristics of the drainage basin can be visualised either for
the basin or for the drainage network. The most important topographic
characteristics for the basin are its area, length, shape and relief. The corresponding
characteristics for the drainage network are area tributary to stream channels,
drainage density, stream length, network shape or drainage pattern, and network
relief.

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River Basin Delineation and hypsometric curve

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Hypsometric curves give the relative basin
area higher than a given elevation

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The hypsometric curve, in general, will
change with time because of the gradual
erosion of areas at higher levels and hence
the relative position of the hypsometric
curve on a/H vs h/H graph gives an idea
about the stage of development of the basin
landscape

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Stream Network

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A stream net or river net is the interrelated drainage pattern formed by a set of
streams in a certain area.

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A junction is the point where two channels meet.

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A link is any unbroken stretch of the river between two junctions; this is then known
as the interior link. If it is between the source and first junction, it is called the
exterior link.

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Quantitative analysis of the stream network really started with Horton (1945). This
analysis has been developed to facilitate comparison between different drainage
basins, to help obtain relations between various aspects of drainage patterns, and to
define certain useful properties of drainage basins in significant terms

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Stream order – Horton method

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The stream order is a measure of the degree of
stream branching within a watershed.
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According to Horton (1945) the main stream in the river
net should be denoted by the same order number all the
way from its mouth to its headwaters. Thus, at every
junction where the order changes, one of the lower order
streams is renumbered to the higher order and the
process repeated.
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In Figure a) the main stream is shown as the fourth order
stream right back to its source. The third order streams
which are tributary to the fourth order stream are also
extended back to their farthest source as the third order
streams and so on. The streams joining the third order
stream are second order stream and they can be
extended backward. It can be immediately realized that a
certain amount of subjectivity is involved in the ordering
of streams according to Horton’s method.

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Stream order – Strahler method

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In Strahler’s (1952,1957 system, see Fig. (b), the
headwater streams that receive no tributary are
called first order streams.

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Two first order streams unite to give a second
order stream.

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Two second order streams unite to give a third
order stream and so on.

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When two streams of different order unite, the
combined stream retains the order of the higher
order stream.

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Stream order – Horton and Strahler method

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Horton’s law of streams (modified by Strahler)

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The logarithmic of the
number of streams of a link
is linearly related to the
order of the link.
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Logarithmic of the length of
a link is linearly related to
its order.
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The logarithmic of the Area
is linearly related to its
order

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 Horton’s law of stream number and stream length

Consider a river net in a drainage basin in which the highest

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order of the stream is K. Let u represent the order of any

segment and Nu represent the number of streams of the order
u.
It has been found by Horton and other investigators that if log
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(Nu) is plotted against u for any river net the data fall on a
single straight line with Nu decreasing for increasing u, see Fig.
Hence the relation between Nu and u can be expressed as

Here a and b are constants. The constant Rb is known as the

bifurcation ratio. It is defined as the number of streams of order
u divided by number of streams of order (u – 1)

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Bifurcation ratio

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Horton law example

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Exercice solution

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 Drainage densities

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Drainage density is defined as the total length of streams in a basin divided
by its area. Hence the drainage density Dd is given by Dd = 1 K å 1 N å
Lu/A ...(2.14) and will have dimension of km–1. Here N is the number of
streams of order u and K is the order of the river basin.

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Areas of Drainage Basins
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Basin area is hydrologically important because it directly affects the
size of the storm hydrograph, and the magnitude of mean and peak
flows. Amount of sediment eroded from the drainage basin is also
related to the basin area. In fact, since almost every watershed
characteristic is correlated with area, the area is the most important
parameter in the description of form and processes of the drainage
basin.
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The area Au of a basin of given order u is defined as the total area projected upon a
horizontal plane, which contributes overland flow to the channel segment of a
given order and all the tributaries of the lower order. Thus area of the basin of the
third order, A3 will be the sum of areas of first and second order basins, plus all
additional areas, known as inter-basin areas, contributing directly to channels of
order higher than the first.

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Relation between basin area and basin length

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Some attempts have been made to relate stream
lengths to basin areas. It is argued that according
to the laws of stream lengths and basin areas,
both these parameters are related to the stream
order. Hence a relation of the type L ~ An should
relate basin length to the basin area. On the basis
of over 300 measurements made by Langbein
(1947), Hack (1957) found that this relation is of
the type L = 1.16 A0.60
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where L is the stream length in km measured up to the
drainage divide and A is basin area in km2 . For
geometrically similar basins one would expect L ~ A0.50.
Since according to Hack L ~ A0.60, it means that drainage
basin changes its shape in the downstream direction; it
tends to become longer and narrower as it changes.

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Basin Shape

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Basin shape affects the hydrologic
characteristics of the basin, namely
hydrograph shape. As mentioned earlier
a long narrow basin having high
bifurcation ratio gives a low but
sustained peak whereas round basins
with low bifurcation ratio would give a
sharply peaked hydrograph. Several
shape factors have been suggested to
describe the shape of the basins
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