CivE382Study Guide

Study Guide

Module 1

 Be familiar with the components of the water cycle, and be able to generally describe each of
the processes which distributes water between the ground surface, atmosphere, and subsurface
要背

Evaporation: converting liquid water from surface water sources to gaseous water which resides
in the atmosphere
Precipitation: Water moves from the atmosphere to the surface of the planet
Transpiration: water is conveyed from living plant tissues, especially leaves, to the atmosphere

Precipitation; Precipitation interception; Transpiration

Infiltration; Evaporation; Evapotranspiration
Groudwater flow; Interflow; Water table
Surface Detention; Depression Storage
Overland Flow; Surface Runoff

 Be able to apply simple mass balance concepts to watersheds and/or lake systems, and convert
between distributed flux units [mm/d] and flow [m3/s]

P – R +- G – E - T = dS/dt
Precipitation: climate change; urban island heat; industrialization; irrigation; cloud seeding
Runoff: dams; agriculture; channelization; urbanization
Groundwater losses: irrigation
Evaporation + Transpiration: deforestation; urbanization
Boundary: sewer; canal; channel conveyance; aqueducts

 Be familiar with useful rules of thumb:

Annual flows [m3/s]*100~watershed area [km2];

~1 m/yr precipitation in S. Ontario,
~60% of which is ET

 Be able to apply the residual and component methods for water balance estimation; know the
difference between net basin supply and net total supply in the Great Lakes

Component: NBS = (P [mm/d] + R [mm/d] – E [mm/d]) * t

Residual: NBA = S – (I [mm/d] – O [mm/d] +- D [mm/d]) * t

NBS: net amount of natural water added to or removed from a lake with the confines of its
natural drainage basin = (P + R – E) * t
NTS: Net amount of inflow to lake from upstream and watershed = (P + R – E + I – O +- D) t
CivE382Study Guide

Module 2

 Be able to calculate probabilities of exceedance, non-exceedance and failure for different storm
return periods, be able to apply the binomial distribution to determine risk of a given design

看例题

 Be able to use moments of distributions (mean and standard deviations) to calculate T-year
design conditions for normal, log-normal, and log-Pearson type II distributions

看例题 背公式 搞清楚两个表

 Be able to use plotting position to determine return periods from datasets of ranked peak
annual flow (i.e., apply the Weibull formula)

 Be familiar with the three design storms used in Ontario and how to interpret an IDF curve

1. Probable maximum precipitation

2. Regional storm
3. Frequency – based storm

Module 3 & 4

 Be able to describe the various forms of surface runoff mechanisms, and distinguish their
contribution to a stream hydrograph

1. Infiltration excess overland flow (into dry soil)

2. Saturation excess overland flow (Saturated soil)

 Understand the assumptions used in the derivation of the NRCS curve number method, the
influence of curve number on the distribution of precipitation into soil water/abstraction/direct
runoff

背公式

 **Given a design storm, be able to calculate the corresponding direct runoff hydrograph (using
NRCS or Horton).

看例题

 Know capillarity, unsaturated zone pressure distributions, water table.

CivE382Study Guide

 Know the difference between rainfall intensity, infiltration rate, potential infiltration capacity,
and cumulative infiltration volume

Rainfall intensity:
Infiltration rate: speed at which water can be taken into the soil during an rainfall, snowmelt or
irrigation event
Potential infiltration capacity: maximum rate at which water can be passed through surface of
the soil
Cumulative infiltration volume: total accumulated infiltration volume

 Be able to describe the phenomenon of infiltration into homogeneous soil and explain the
reason behind the characteristic shape of the infiltration curve 𝑓(𝑡)

Infiltration very high due to large vertical gradients at early time

Capillary forces dissipate and a unit hydraulic gradient develops

Module 5

 Be able to describe the various characteristics of a hydrograph, and know the important time
characteristics (𝑡𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 , 𝑡𝑙𝑎𝑔 , 𝑡𝑐 , 𝑡𝑟 , 𝑡𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 ) and their definitions

𝑡𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 – time from start of precipitation event to appearance in stream

𝑡𝑙𝑎𝑔 - time to lag time, from center of mass of event to the peak of hydrograph
𝑡𝑐 - time of concentration, time for water to reach the outlet from the point
𝑡𝑟 -
𝑡𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 - duration of hydrograph response

 Be able to interpret travel time isochrone maps and understand the influence of various
watershed parameters on time of concentration and time to peak; understand the impact of
urbanization on streamflow hydrographs

Shape; drainage density; size; slope

 Understand the source of the linear reservoir baseflow model, and the various means of
separating baseflow from a given hydrograph
CivE382Study Guide

Formula Sheet

1
𝑃(𝑄 > 𝑄𝑇 ) =
𝑇 You will be given a table of 𝑧𝑇 =
𝑛 (𝑄
1 𝑛 𝐹 −1 (𝑝) for the normal distribution, and
𝑃 )
< 𝑄𝑇 = (1 − )
𝑇 be expected to estimate flows using
1 𝑛 𝑄𝑝 = 𝜇𝑄 + 𝐾(𝑞𝑧 , 𝑧𝑇 ) ⋅ 𝜎𝑄
𝑃𝐹 (𝑛) = 1 − (1 − )
𝑇 ln 𝑄𝑝 = 𝜇ln 𝑄 + 𝐾(𝑞𝑧 , 𝑧𝑇 ) ⋅ 𝜎ln 𝑄
𝑁!
𝑃(𝑛) = 𝑝𝑛 (1 − 𝑝)𝑁−𝑛
𝑛! (𝑁 − 𝑛)!
1 𝜎𝑄2
𝜇ln 𝑄 = ln(𝜇𝑄 ) − ln [1 + 2 ]
2 𝜇𝑄
2
2
𝜎𝑄
𝜎ln 𝑄 = ln [1 + 2 ]
𝜇𝑄

3 Scrutinize the formulas and make sure

2 𝑞𝑥 𝑞𝑥
𝐾(𝑞𝑥 , 𝑧𝑇 ) = [((𝑧𝑇 − ) + 1) − 1 ] you are comfortable with the units and
𝑞𝑥 6 6 what each of the symbols/letters mean
𝑚−𝛼
𝑃(𝑋 > 𝑥𝑚 ) ≈
𝑁 + 1 − 2𝛼

(𝑃 − 𝐼𝑎 )2
𝑄= (𝑃, 𝐼𝑎 , 𝑆 in mm)
𝑃 − 𝐼𝑎 + 𝑆

25400
𝑆= − 254 (𝑆 in mm)
𝐶𝑁
𝐼𝑎 = 0.2𝑆 𝑜𝑟 0.075𝑆 (for SCS method)

Things to memorize:
𝑑𝑆
=𝐼−𝑂
𝑑𝑡
(if you haven’t learned this by the end
of class, you fail)
𝑁𝐵𝑆𝑐 = 𝑃 + 𝑅 − 𝐸
𝑁𝐵𝑆𝑟 = Δ𝑆 − 𝐼 + 𝑂 − 𝐷
CivE382Study Guide