CHAPTER 4

HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE
AND WATER BUDGET
EQUATION
CONCEPT OF HYDROLOGY
 Hydrology is a science that studies the
availability and movement of water in the
earth.
 Hydrology is also defined as a science related
to the occurrence and distribution of natural
water on the earth.
 As general, hydrology covers many type of
water, including transformation among liquid,
solid and gas in atmosphere, surface and
subsurface land.
 Hydrology is a study of water supply, major
floods and droughts and their management,
drainage and urban storm water issues.

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CONCEPT OF HYDROLOGY
 The field of hydrology is of fundamental
importance to civil and environmental
engineers, hydro-geologists, and other earth
scientists
 Commonly, cases of hydrology are solved
using various sciences such as mathematics,
physics, statistic, meteorology, oceanography,
geography, geology, geomorphology,
hydraulics, and water resources engineering.
 In addition, many modern hydrology problems
include considerations of water quality and
contaminant transport.

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 DEFINITION OF HYDROLOGY
 Hydrology means the science of water. Hydrology
treats all phases of water, their occurrence,
circulation and distribution, their chemical and
physical properties and their reaction with their
environment including their relation to living
things. (10%)
 There are two broad categories:
 (1) Scientific Hydrology and
 (2) Engineering/Applied Hydrology.
 Engineering Hydrology includes those segments
of the field pertinent to planning, design and
operation of engineering projects for the control
and use of water.
 Group Discussion :

SKETCH AND EXPLAIN THE

PROCESS IN HYDROLOGICAL
CYCLE…

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 NAME OF THE LABEL OF
HYDOLOGICAL PROCESS…

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ANSWER ….
 PROCESS OF HYDROLOGY CYCLE

 Water that falls to the ground, in solid or 1. PRECIPITATION

liquid form, including rain, snow, sleet, and
hail.
 Precipitation comes from clouds, which are
formed of water vapor evaporated from the
land and oceans. This vapor condenses
into tiny water droplets or ice crystals.
 When these droplets grow large enough,
and the temperature is above freezing,
they fall as rain. If the temperature is cold
enough for them to freeze, they fall as
snow, sleet, or hail. Sleet is snow that has
melted and refrozen on the way down.
Hailstones form in the powerful gusty
winds of thunderstorms, as frozen water
droplets buffeted by the air are covered
with layers of ice until they’re too heavy to
stay aloft and fall as hail.
2. EVAPORATION
 This is the change of state of
water from liquid to the gaseous
phase, usually caused by the
input of heat energy.
 It is controlled by air
temperature, humidity of the air
and wind speed. It will occur
almost continuously from
stretches of permanent open
water and from moist of land
surfaces.
 If the ground is wet, evaporation
is direct but evaporation from
shallow water tables is also
possible. Rainfall that has been
intercepted and caught on the
surfaces of plants also
contributes to direct evaporation.
3. CONDENSATION

 Condensation is the process by which water vapor in the air is

changed into liquid water. Condensation is crucial to the water
cycle because it is responsible for the formation of clouds.
 These clouds may produce precipitation, which is the primary
route for water to return to the Earth's surface within the water
cycle. Condensation is the opposite of evaporation.
4. TRANSPIRATION

 Transpiration is the process by which moisture is carried through

plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves,
where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere.
 Transpiration is essentially evaporation of water from plant
leaves. Transpiration also includes a process called guttation,
which is the loss of water in liquid form from the uninjured leaf or
stem of the plant, principally through water stomata.
5. SURFACE RUNOFF

 Precipitation which is not penetrating the land surface will usually

run off the surface along the defined channels which have been
produced by geological processes, previous storms, or possibly by
man.
 Runoff can gather in shallow depressions, or inland lakes, but
large volumes of water merge to produce rivers
6. INFILTRATION

 This is the movement of precipitation through the soil surface into

the soil and deeper.
 The rate at which this process can take place is governed by the
soil’s permeability and by degree of saturation of the soil.
 The total amount of infiltration depends not only on the soil’s
infiltration rate but also the rainfall intensity.
 Also, the slope of the land will affect the time available for
infiltration to take place – flat land will keep water in contact with
the soil longer, whilst sloping land will encourage surface runoff to
develop
7. SUB – SURFACE RUNOFF

 Subsurface runoff is the water that infiltrates in the

unsaturated zone, from rain, snowmelt, or other
sources, and moves laterally towards the streams.
 Unsaturated zone extends from the top of the ground
surface to the water table. It is one of the major
components in the water cycle. Subsurface runoff can
be expressed in water volume (or mass) per unit of area
per unit of time.
8. INTERCEPTION

 Interception, or canopy
interception, refers to
precipitation that does not reach
the soil, but is instead
intercepted by the leaves and
branches of plants. It occurs in
the canopy, and in the forest
ground litter.
 Because of evaporation,
interception of liquid water
generally leads to loss of that
precipitation for the drainage
basin, except for cases such as
fog interception
 Discussion :
Recognize the effect of soils use
toward hydrological cycle ..

RURAL URBAN

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 THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE ON LAND
 The amount of precipitation that
absorbed into the soil depends on
several factors:

 The amount and intensity of the

precipitation,
 The prior condition of the soil,
 The slope of the landscape,
 The presence of vegetation.

Condition of the soil

 THE HYDROLOGIC
CYCLE ON LAND
 The amount of precipitation that soaks
into the soil depends on several factors:
 The amount and intensity of the
precipitation,
 The prior condition of the soil,
 The slope of the landscape,
 The presence of vegetation.
 THE HYDROLOGIC
CYCLE ON LAND
 These factors can interact in sometimes
surprising ways - a very intense rainfall
onto very dry soil, typical of the desert
southwest, often will not soak into the
ground at all, creating flash-flood
conditions.

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THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE
ON LAND
 Water that does soak in becomes available to
plants. Plants take up water through their root
systems; the water is then pulled up through all
parts of the plant and evaporates from the surface
of the leaves, a process called transpiration.
 Water that soaks into the soil can also continue to
percolate down through the soil profile into
groundwater reservoirs, called aquifers. Aquifers
are often mistakenly visualized as great
underground lakes; in reality, groundwater fills the
pore spaces within sediments or rocks.
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CATCHMENT AREA
 An area contributing to flow at any given
point
 A system that changes rainfall (input)
into discharge (output) in its outlet.
 Sometime, it is called a drainage area
bordered by ridge, saddle and hill; it
consists of such land uses as forest,
plants, agriculture, bush, desert, swamp,
housing and others.
 In USA, it is known as watershed
CATCHMENT AREA
 The factors considered in determination
of a river catchment boundary include
river system (stream network),
topography, and drainage outlet point.
 A system which is complex and
heterogeneous consists of collection of
some sub systems.
CATCHMENT AREA

 Each sub system is considered

homogeneous, and every sub system
is determined by its physical
character, where it can be grouped as
follows:
 The characters of its surface (land use and topographic),
 The characters of top soil layer, and
 The characters of sub soil layer.
The Cathment Model
 HYDROLOGY BALANCE EQUATION
 The complete water cycle is global in nature. Many sub-cycles exist in hydrologic
cycle.
 For a given problem area or catchment in an interval of time t, the continuity
equation for water in its various phases is :

 Mass inflow – mass outflow = change in storage

 P–R–G–E–T=S

 Where,
 P – Precipitation,
(primary input and the starting point in the analysis)
 R – Runoff;
 G – Groundwater;
 E – Evaporation;
 T – Transpiration.

 All terms in equation have dimensions of volume but can be expressed as depth
over the catchment. Infiltration does not appear explicitly in the water budget
equation, because it is loss to runoff but a gain to groundwater system.
EXAMPLE 1:

Annual evaporation was occurs at a dam is 285 cm.

Determine the daily average evaporation rates during
the year in the hectare meter per day if the dam
surface area is 1240 hectares.

(Answer: 9.68 hectare-meter / day)

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EXAMPLE 2:
A 550 hectare reservoir evaporation was produces a
40 cm by 24 hours. The increase caused by heavy
3
rains into the reservoir is at a rate of 50m /s.
Determine the volume of water infiltrated in hectare
meters in the base of the reservoir on the same day if
the water table remains unchanged. Given, 1 hectare
2
is 10,000 m .

(Answer: 212 hectare-meter / day)

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EXAMPLE 3 :
For a given month, a 121 ha lake has 0.43m3/s of inflow,
0.37 m3/s of outflow, and total storage increased of 1.97
ha.m. A USGS gage next to the lake recorded a total of
3.3 cm precipitation for the lake for the month. Assuming
that infiltration loss is insignificant for the lake, determine
the evaporation loss, in cm, over the lake.

(Answer : 14.53 cm )

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