Introduction
What is hydrology?
Hydrology is the scientific study of movement, distribution and water quality on Earth and
other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed
sustainability.
Meteorological and Hydrological Data Analysis
Hydrological studies require extensive analysis of meteorological, hydrological and spatial
data to represent the actual processes taking place on the environment and better estimation
of quantities out of it.
Precipitation is the source of all waters which enters the land.
Hydrologists need to understand how the amount, rate, duration, and quality of precipitation
are distributed in space and time in order to assess, predict, and forecast hydrologic
responses of a catchment.
Meteorological data
Principles of Data Analysis
A) Corrections to Point Measurements
Because precipitation is the input to the land phase of the hydrologic cycle, its accurate
measurement is the essential foundation for quantitative hydrologic analysis.
B) Estimation of Missing Data
When undertaking an analysis of precipitation data from gauges where daily observations
are made, it is often to find days when no observations are recorded at one or more
gauges.
Several approaches are used to estimate the missing values.
Station Average,
Normal Ratio,
Inverse Distance Weighting,
and Regression methods are commonly used to fill the missing
records.
Conti…
of the common causes for inconsistency of record are:
1. Shifting of a rain gauge station to a new location
2. The neighbor hood of the station may have undergoing a marked change
3. Change in the immediate environment due to damages due to deforestation,
obstruction, etc.
4. Occurrence of observational error from a certain date both personal and instrumental
The most common method of checking for inconsistency of a record is the Double-Mass
Curve analysis (DMC).
The adjustment is done by applying a correction factor K,
conti
Areal Estimation
Rain gauges represent only point measurements.
Several approaches have been devised for estimating areal precipitation from point
measurements.
1. The Arithmetic mean,
2. Thiessen polygon
3. And the Isohyetal method
Hydrological Data
The availability of stream flow data is important for the model calibration process in
catchment modelling.
The Importance of Hydrology is seen in-
Design of Hydraulic Structures: -
Structures such as bridges, causeways, dams, spillways etc. are in contact with water.
Municipal and Industrial Water supply: -
Growth of towns and cities and also industries around them is often dependent on fresh water
availability in their vicinity. Water should be drawn from rivers, streams, ground water.
Irrigation: -
Dams are constructed to store water for multiple uses. For estimating maximum storage
capacity seepage, evaporation and other losses should be properly estimated.
Hydroelectric Power Generation: -
A hydroelectric power plant need continuous water supply without much variations in the
stream flow. Variations will affect the functioning of turbines in the electric plant.
What is the importance of hydrology in Civil Eng’g
In every civil engineering project, be it a roadway/railway/buildings/whatever,
one of the fundamental duties of the design/engineering team is to make sure that there is no issue with
the on-site drainage.
i.e., the development activity should have no/minimal impact on
the existing conditions in the case of a storm event.
Hydrologic analysis of a development area is the starting point of this analysis.
This is where we study the historical rainfall data, land usage type, and terrain of the ground to
calculate the runoff/discharge/flow rate that could result in that area. Based on the calculated
runoff, engineers do the any building to minimize the impacts of the proposed development.
Why the information about hydrology is needed by civil
engineering projects?
Surface water, after the hydrological and hydraulic calculation, must be entirely
controlled, collected, carried through the influential zone of the object and taken
out of the area in some of the collectors.
Therefore, In the roadway, this role has peripheral
channels on the slopes,
channels along the road for the collection of waters from slopes,
gutters on the road that collect atmospheric storm water in the
roadway systems of drainage,
trenches and drainage pipes that collect water from the body of
the road,
sewer pipes through the body of the road, various structures for
slowing down the flow of water, etc.
Conti…
Therefore:-
Hydrologists work in conjunction with civil engineers to ensure the quality, integrity
and sustainability of infrastructure construction projects.
Civil engineers use the knowledge, information, observation and data that have been
collected by hydrologists to design, build and operate dams and reservoirs.
Without taking into account the hydrological equations in our engineering projects,
all of our reservoirs, spillways and dams will be plagued with water-related problems
that have great potential to cause destruction of properties and even loss of lives.
Other than that, the quality of our hydraulic structures, water drainage systems and
city water supply systems will also suffer greatly.