ELEMENTS OF HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

PRECIPITATION
 Measurement of
Precipitation
It is measured as vertical depth of
water(or water equivalent in case of
snow) that would accumulate if all
the precipitation remained where it
had fallen.
Units
Inches
Cms
mm
 Instruments for measuring the
precipitation
Different types of rain guages are
used to measure the precipitation
Simple rain gauge
Tipping Bucket gauge
Weighing Guage
A Float
A simple rain guage
 It is an 8 in diameter collector .
They are not the recording type
The depth of water has to be
manually read from the gauge
Tipping Bucket
 The tipping bucket has two
compartments or buckets
Each bucket is designed to collect .01
in or 0.1 mm of water
Once one of the bucket is filled it tips
and empties its contents
During this the circuit is completed and
a current representing the given
volume recorded.
 In the meanwhile the second bucket
collects the precipitation
The same process follows.
This can only be used for rain
Snow has to be melted
Weighing type guage
 It measures the weight of rain or
snow that accumulates in a bucket
The bucket sits on a scale that is
calibrated to read an equivalent
depth for a weight of precipitation
In remote areas it has known to
operate for upto three months
A Float
 It is also used to record the depth of water
The float is placed in a collectors area
Or it is placed in a special reservoir of
mercury or oil
As depth of rainfall increases the float
increases
It records the change in depth with rain
It can be easily damaged by freezing
conditions
Network of Guages
Interpretation and Quantification of
Precipitation
The rainfall data can be defined in
terms of
Intensity of rainfall
Cumulative rainfall diagram
Duration of storm
Time distribution of rainfall
Return period and associated depth of
rainfall
 Rainfall Intensity
It is usually measured in mm/hr or
in/hr
It is reported in tabular or graphical
form
Or a Hyetograph is used to represent
the rainfall intensity
A hyetograph is a graphical
representation of rainfall over time
Rainfall Hyetographs
Rainfall Intensity
 Cumulative Rainfall
It is a plot of cumulative rainfall
versus time
It is useful in runoff studies
At any given time during a storm the
intensity is the slope of the rainfall
curve at that point in time
It can be used to determine
cumulative rainfall at any point
during a rainfall event.
 Duration of the precipitation

It is the time from the beginning of the rainfall

event to the point where the mass curve or
cumulative curve becomes horizontal(look at
the previous slide
There may be several short periods of no rain
in between
No rain interval may vary with type of storm
In some cases it may be 5 hrs or in others 5
days
The choice depends on the use of rainfall data
 Time duration and associated depth
is calculated from the cumulative
rainfall diagram
 Calculating Average watershed
precipitation
Three common methods
Arithmetic Average
Isohyetal Method
Thiessen Polygon method
 Arithmetic Average
It is simple average of precipitation
recorded within a watershed
Isohyetal method
 Calculations
A B C D E
Isohyet Estimated Net Area % of total Weighted
(cm) EUD (Sq. Km) area Precipitati
on (BXD)
(cm)
 Calculations
A station B C D
Precipitation Net area (sq. % of total Weighted
(cm) Km) area Precipitation
(AxC)