Development of a GIS Interface for Estimation of Runoff from Watersheds

Abstract

Development of accurate surface runoff estimation techniques from ungauged watersheds is relevant in Indian condition due to the non-availability of hydrologic gauging stations in majority of watersheds. Besides this, the high budgetary requirements for installation of gauging stations are another limiting factor in India, which leads to the use of surface runoff estimation techniques for ungauged watersheds. Natural Resources Conservation Services Curve Number (NRCS-CN) method is one of the most widely used methods for quick and accurate estimation of surface runoff from ungauged watershed. Also, the coupling of NRCS-CN techniques with the advanced Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities automates the process of runoff prediction in timely and efficient manner. Keeping view of this, a GIS interface was developed using the in-built macro programming language, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) of ArcGIS® tool to estimate the surface runoff by adopting NRCS-CN technique and its three modifications. The developed interface named as Interface for Surface Runoff Estimation using Curve Number techniques (ISRE-CN), was validated using the recorded data for the periods from 1993 to 2001 of a gauged watershed, Banha in the Upper Damodar Valley in Jharkhand, India. The observed runoff depths for different rainfall events in this study watershed was compared with the predicted values of NRCS-CN methods and its three modifications using statistical significance tests. It was revealed that using all the rainfall data for different AMC conditions, the modified CN I performed the best [R 2 (coefficient of determination)=0.92; E (model efficiency)=0.89) followed by modified CN III method (R 2 =0.88; E=0.87), while the modified CN II (R 2 =0.42; E=0.36) failed to predict accurately the surface runoff from Banha watershed. Moreover, under AMC based estimations, the modified CN I method also Water Resour Manage (performed best (R 2 =0.95; E=0.95) for AMC II condition, while the modified CN II performed the worst in all the AMC conditions. However, the developed Interface in ArcGIS® needs to be tested in other watershed systems for wider applicability of the modified CN methods.

GIS-based Approach to Estimate Surface Runoff in Small Catchments: A Case Study

“…However, several similar studies e.g. Patil et al (2008), Agarwal et al (2013), Costache et al (2014) or Nagarajan, Basil (2014) suggest that the use of physically based models (e.g. HBV, TOPMODEL or MIkE-SHE) has a certain disadvantage that they require a large number of input parameters to calibrate them making these models expensive and time consuming.…”

“…Therefore, use of GIS is preferred over the traditional techniques in proper quantification of surface runoff (Patil et al 2008). Moreover, the estimation process becomes more efficient and interactive when solely GIS is used for storing, analyzing, interpreting, and displaying the data required in CN based runoff estimation techniques.…”

Functional Structure and Data Management of Urban Water Supply Network Based on GIS

“…With the same importance as the metadata, classified encode data is also secondary-processed data, with function to provide organization for various data with fixed value (Wu et al 2008;Patil et al 2008). …”

Spatial and temporal estimation of runoff in a semi-arid microwatershed of Southern India

“…In India, the availability of accurate information on runoff is scarcely available and that too in a few selected sites where recording and automatic hydrologic gauging stations are installed (Patil et al 2008). Thus, there is an urgent need to develop techniques for estimation of surface runoff from ungauged basins (Zade et al 2005).…”