Journal of Environmental Hydrology
ISSN 1058-3912


Electronic Journal of the International Association for Environmental Hydrology

JEH Volume 14 (2006), Paper 4    Posted May 19, 2006
RAINFALL-RUNOFF SIMULATION IN AN EXPERIMENTAL BASIN USING GIS METHODS

N. Dervos1
E.A. Baltas2
M.A. Mimikou1

1Department of Water Resources Hydraulics and Maritime Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
2Department of Hydraulics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece


ABSTRACT
A GIS-based rainfall-runoff model was developed to simulate the runoff discharge at the outlet of a 15.18 km2 gauged steep watershed that is located at the prefecture of Attica, Greece. The model’s core is the time-area routing technique, which shares the assumptions of the unit hydrograph theory. This technique accounts for translation, does not account for watershed storage effects and is applicable mainly to small to midsized watersheds. GIS was used to develop the watershed cumulative travel time map that was divided into isochrones in order to generate the time-area histogram. Basic maps were the rasters of digital elevation model and landuse that were processed to derive the rasters of slope, flow direction, flow accumulation and roughness coefficient. The model was calibrated and validated using the observed rainfall-runoff data from thirty storm events. Two simulated hydrographs were calculated for each storm event, using the watershed time-area histogram and two temporal distributions of excess rainfall, estimated by the SCS and the Phi-Index methods. The simulated values of peak flow rate and time to peak were compared with the observed values, via statistical methods. A sensitivity analysis indicated the effect of various parameters on the simulated hydrographs.

Reference: Dervos N., E.A. Baltas, and M.A. Mimikou. 2006. Rainfall-Runoff Simulation in an Experimental Basin Using GIS Methods, Journal of Environmental Hydrology, Vol. 14, Paper 4.
CONTACT:
E. A. Baltas
Department of Hydraulics, Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering School of Agriculture
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
54006 Thessaloniki, Greece



E-mail: Email:baltas@agro.auth.gr



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