NAME:SHADRACK KIBET KURUI

REG NO:BSCE/016J/2011
UNIT:WATER RESOURCE ENGINEERING.
YEAR:5TH SEM 1.
ASSIGNMENT
A catchment response to a storm event will be influenced by a number of different
variables, including

Land-use
The results show that the influence of land-use conditions on storm-runoff
generation depends greatly on the rainfall event characteristics and on the related
spatial scale, i.e. the influence is only relevant for convective storm events with high
precipitation intensities in contrast to long-lasting advective storm events with low
precipitation intensities. However, convective eventsand thus land-use conditions
are of very minor relevance for the formation of floods in large river basins
because this type of rainfall event is usually restricted to small-scale occurrence..
Urbanization also plays a role as there is more construction of buildings which
makes it to have less infiltration as there is tarmack roads and infrastructure which
enhances the use of drainage systems to drain the water since there is less
infiltration.
In conclusion, responses of headwater streams to individual storms are
unpredictable but increased peak flows occur associated with human development,
mitigated by surficial geology. The headwater streams that are most vulnerable to
alterations in flow occur on poorly drained soils, and where urbanization tends to
concentrate. Much greater attention to managing water is required if further
degradation of stream ecosystems is to be prevented from our future land use.

Underlying geology
There is potentially significant hydrologic influence of underlying bedrock in
rainfallrunoff delivery at the hillslope scale. It is also evident that stormflow
followed fracture pathways within the shallow weathered bedrock and interacted
with the overlying colluvium when flows is forced upwards by more competent
bedrock, creating zones of transient saturation. Later work at the Coos Bay Oregon

site by Montgomery et al. (1997) and Anderson et al. (1997) also noted subsurface
flow paths that traversed the soil and bedrock zones in steep unchanneled slopes.
Water exfiltrating from the bedrock during storm events and sprinkling experiments
produced perched transient water tables at the soilbedrock interface that
influenced directly, subsurface storm- flow and slope instability. Additionally, their
bromide tracer injections showed rapid movement of bedrock flow to the catchment
outlet identifying the importance of bedrock flow paths for hillslope-to-catchment
integration
In other research it showed the importance of bedrock groundwater in a granitic
catchment in Central Japan. They found that transient saturation at the soil bedrock
interface was connected to the rise and fall of deeper bedrock groundwater that
ultimately influenced the chemical, spatial and temporal characteristics of
subsurface water movement into the stream channel.
In some bedrock aquifers, fracture flow is the key feature controlling bedrock
groundwater contributions to hillslope flow and catchment runoff response. Fracture
flow through bedrock is controlled by fracture network density, geometry and
connectivity (Banks et al., 2009) and can be extremely complex and heterogeneous.
Fracture zones separated by competent bedrock may create compartmentalized
aquifers, while faulting, weathering and other large scale geologic processes may
help induce connectivity between fracture pathways

Soil type
Rainfall runoff processes in tropical microcatchments are driven by a combination
of factors like rainfall characteristics, soil physical conditions, slope gradients and
vegetation types. Nevertheless, soil physical properties like texture and drainage
conditions of the subsoil as well as slope gradients are key factors in runoff control
under tropical rainfall with high storm event intensities and rainfall accumulations.
by impervious surfaces, but also by an increase in catchment area contributing to
the river flow

Antecedent moisture conditions

Soil water content in the upper soil layer prior to a rain event can be an important
factor affecting the relationship between rainfall and runoff. Their results showed
that the surface runoff was strongly controlled by soil moisture, with a threshold
value of the volumetric water content varying from 41 to 46 %, below which no
runoff occurred.. In hot semiarid and arid environments soils are often much drier in
general, and the role of antecedent soil moisture can be less important.
soil moisture. Runoff from less intense storms on soils of higher permeability is
controlled by the soil water content of the surface soil layers and is more dependent
on initial conditions. Soil water content monitoring at the watershed scale is difficult

because of its space-time variability and because field measurements are costly and
time consuming (Brocca et al., 2008). Because there are very few studies that have
looked at the effects of antecedent soil moisture on runoff modeling sensitivities in
arid/semi-arid areas,The questions blow has to be addressed mostly: (1) to examine
the sensitivity of the measured runoff to rainfall ratio to measured antecedent soil
water content, (2) to analyze the sensitivity of runoff depth and peak model output
to soil moisture input, and (3) to test the prediction capability of runoff at a small
watershed scale using measured storm-antecedent soil moisture vs. long-term
average antecedent soil water content for model initial conditions