Civil Engineering Department / 4th Class Water Resources

Engineering

Lect. No. 2: Hydrology

1- Evapotranspiration (Es)
Evapotranspiration include evaporation and transpiration. Evaporation can be defined as the
water evaporate from the surfaces of ocean, rivers, and lakes and also from the moist soil
evaporates. The vapors are carried over the land by air in the form of clouds. While the
transpiration is the process of water being lost from the leaves of the plants. Generally, the
evapotranspiration consists of
i) Surface evaporation,
ii) Water surface evaporation from river surface and oceans,
iii) Evaporation from plants and leaves (transpiration), and
iv) Atmospheric evaporation.
The rate of evapotranspiration is difficult to quantify, since it can vary considerably from one
area to another. An approach to estimate the evapotranspiration over an area is attained by using
an evapotranspirometer, which is a container of soil and vegetation from which the water loss is
measured by weighting all water inflow from the surface and outflow from the bottom of the
container. However, as it is also more convenient for desert regions, the estimation is simplified
sometimes by considering losses due to evaporation only. Equation of continuity may also be
used to calculate the evaporation from a water body such as lakes and reservoirs.
E = P + X −Y − F − ΔS
Thus the evaporation rate E in a certain time interval can be computed using the
information about precipitation P, inflow X, outflow Y, infiltration F, and the variation of the
volume of water ΔS in the same interval.

2- Infiltration (F)
A part of the precipitation falling on the earth’s surface seeps into the soil by gravitation,
capillary and molecular forces. This is called infiltration. Infiltration is the process by which
water seeps into the ground through the earth surface. The spatial variation of infiltration rate

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Civil Engineering Department / 4th Class Water Resources
Engineering
over an area is influenced by many factors including the properties of soil and vegetation cover.
Water surface runoff occurs only if the rainfall rate for a given time is higher than the
infiltration rate.
Several empirical models describing the infiltration rate of water through soil are available,
each with underlying assumptions and limitations. One of the earliest infiltration models is the
Horton equation (Chow et al., 1988). Horton observed that infiltration f began at some initial
rate fo and exponentially decreased until it reached a constant rate fC caused by filling of soil
.pores by water (Figure 1.6)

Figure 1.6 Horton’s exponential assumption for infiltration process.

Horton model can be expressed mathematically as

where ft infiltration rate at any time t ; fo initial infiltration rate; fC final infiltration rate; and k a
decay constant. The total volume of water per unit area that has infiltrated until a specific time
is called the cumulative infiltration and can be determined by integrating the above equation

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Civil Engineering Department / 4th Class Water Resources
Engineering

Another simpler infiltration method to estimate the average losses resulting not only from
infiltration but also from other processes such as evapotranspiration is the Q - index. This
method assumes a constant average loss rate of magnitude Q throughout the entire basin.
Rainfall above Q is called excess rainfall1, and below Q are the losses. Figure (1.7) shows a
description of the Q - index.

Figure (1.7) Description of the Q - index.