Hydrology

Chapter 1. Hydrology cycle

● Science that deals with processes governing the depletion and replenishment of
water resources of the land areas of the earth.
● Potamology (science of surface streams), Limnology (science of lakes), cryology
(science of snow and ice)
● Percolation is the process of a liquid slowly passing through a filter
● The precipitation falling directly over the streams is called the channel
precipitation
● The precipitation reaching the ground surface is called throughfall
● About two-thirds of the precipitation that reaches the land surface is returned
to the atmosphere by evaporation
● The groundwater runoff is sometimes referred to as the base flow or the
interflow.
● Residence time of global atmospheric moisture is the average travel time for
water to pass through a subsystem of the hydrologic cycle.
Tr = S (volume of atm moisture, avg 12900 km3) / Q (flow rate of moisture)
● Hydrologic budget (precipitation, surface Runoff,
Evaporation, Transpiration, Groundwater flow, Change in storage)
● Hydrometeorology is defined as the study of the atmospheric processes
which affect the water resources of the earth and are of interest to the
hydrological engineers.
● Troposphere (weather phenomena) -> Tropopause -> Stratosphere (contains
major ozone) -> Stratopause -> Mesosphere -> Mesopause -> Ionosphere

● The air density (kg/m3)

P is air pressure (Pa), R is specific gas constant = 287.05J (kg.K),
Temperature in kelvin.
● Mean sea level standard atmospheric pressure at 15C = 1013 mb
● The water vapour content or humidity of air is measured as a vapour pressure
(e). The vapour pressure (e) is given by the ideal gas law.
e=PvRvT , density of waterx gas constant for water vapour x absolute
temperature in K)

Midterm last problem

a Relative humidity
The relative measure of the amount of moisture in the air
to the amount needed to saturate the air at the same
temperature.
b watershed
A high area of land where rain collects, some of it
flowing down to rivers, lakes at lower levels.
c Frontal lifting
The formation of precipitation requires lifting of air mass
so that it cools and condenses. In this case warm air is
lifted over cooler air by frontal passage.
d Monsoon
The dry cold winter winds blowing outward are replaced
in summer by warm or hot winds carrying moist air from
oceans being drawn into a low pressure area.
e Lysimeter
A measuring device, which can be used to measure the
amount of actual evapotranspiration.

f Horton equation
Infiltration begins at some rate and exponentially
decreases until it reaches a constant rate.

g Rainfall hyetograph
The plot of rainfall depth as a function of time.
(Intensity)

h Bergeron process
Air is saturated with respect to water but supersaturated
with respect to ice. Hence water vapour is deposited on
the ice particles to form ice crystals.