The Role of Rainy Days in Predicting the Flow Duration Curve in Different Climates of Iran

Document Type : Research

Authors

1 Assistant Prof., Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, Tehran, Iran

2 Associate Prof., Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The Improvement and development of predictions in ungauged catchments require recognizing effective factors and understanding the interactions between different components of the catchments and hydrological response in different climatic zones. The most important factors affecting the flow duration curve (FDC) indices are precipitation and its characteristics. Since the flow duration curve represents the hydrologic response of watersheds, investigating and recognizing the effect of rainfall distribution on it can help to identify predictive factors for estimating the flow duration curve in ungauged catchments. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships between the number of rainy days and the indices FDC in the different climate zones of the country. Catchments of each climatic region were separated using the climate map of the country and overlapping it with the four-level border map of the watershed, and 314 hydrometric stations with the common period (1976–2011) in six climatic zones were selected. Flow duration curve using daily stream flow data were extracted by the Hydro Office software (2015) and indices of Q2, Q5, Q10, Q15, Q20, Q50, Q75, and Q90 were selected. The average of rainy days for each catchment was calculated and the regression relations between the FDC indices and the average of the number of rainy days in different climatic regions were extracted and analyzed. The results showed that the correlation between the indices of the first part of FDC with the number of rainy days in all selected watersheds of climatic zones had a weak and unreliable relationship for prediction and estimation of FDC in the ungauged catchments. But the relationships for the end parts of FDC (Q75 and Q90), were strong. It is noteworthy that the average coefficient of determination for the low flow indices (Q75 and Q90) with the average annual rainy days in catchments of different climatic zones was approximately equal to 0.66. This indicates the importance of the parameter of the number of rainy days as the predictor of the low flow indices associated with the end part of the FDC in different climatic zones. Therefore, it is suggested that the number of rainy days should be used as a predictive parameter for estimating the indices of the end section of FDC; its use for estimating other indices is not recommended.

Keywords

References

Alizadeh A. 2007. Principal of applied hydrology, 14rd Edn. Mashhad. Emamreza University. 807p. (In Persian).
Atieh M, Taylor G, Sattar AM, Gharabaghi B. 2017. Prediction of flow duration curves for un gauged basins. Journal of Hydrology. 545: 383–394.
Banasik K, Hejduk L. 2013. Flow duration curves for two small catchments with various records in lowland part of Poland. Annual Set The Environment Protection. 15:287–300.
Burgan HI, Aksoy H. 2018. Annual flow duration curve model for ungauged basins. Hydrology Research. 49(5): 1684–1695.
Castellarina A,  Galeatib G,  Brandimartea L,  Montanaria L, Bratha AA. 2004. Regional flow-duration curves: Reliability for ungauged basins, Journal of Advances in Water Resources.  27: 953–965.
Cheng L, Yaeger M, Viglione A, Coopersmith E, Ye S, Sivapalan M. 2012. Exploring the physical controls of regional patterns of flow duration curves–Part 1: Insights from statistical analyses. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 16 (11): 4435–4446.
Coopersmith E, Yaeger MA, Ye S, Cheng L, Sivapalan M. 2012. Exploring the physical controls of regional patterns of flow duration curves–Part 3: A catchment classification system based on regime curve indicators. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 16 (11): 4467–4482.
Costa V, Fernandez W, Naghettini M. 2014. Regional models of flow-duration curves of perennial and intermittent streams and their use for calibrating the parameters of a rainfall–runoff model. Hydrological Sciences Journal. 59 (2): 262–277.
Jamab Consulting Engineers Company, 1387, Hydrology and Climatology Data Base.
Kazemi R. Porhemmat J, Sharifi F .2018. Investigation and determination of factors affecting the shape of the flow duration curve in different climates of Iran, J. of Water and Soil Conservation. 25(1): 85–105. (In Persian).
Kazemi R, Karam A, Safari A, Porhemmat J. 2017.  Modeling of flow duration curve deformation in Karkheh Basin, Journal of Geographic Space. 17(60):131–147. (In Persian).
Kazemi R, Ghiasi GN. 2016. Investigation of the role of physiographical and hydrological parameters on the shape of flow duration curve (Case study: Khazar Region). Journal of Watershed Management Research. 7(14):119–127. (In Persian).
Khosrobeygi-Bozcheloei S, Vafakhah M. 2017. Regional analysis of flow duration curve in Namak Lake Basin, Iran. Journal of Watershed Management Research. 7 (14):236–228. (In Persian).
Kneale PE. 1989. Principles of hydrology (3rd edition), R. C. Ward and M. Robinson, McGraw-Hill, 1989 ISBN 0-07-707204-9.
Lane PNJ, Best AE, Hickel K, Zhang L. 2005. The response of flow duration curves to afforestation, Journal of Hydrology. 310: 253– 265.
Lee TH, LeeM H, Yi J. 2016. Development of regional regression model for estimating flow duration curves in un gauged basins. Journal of the Korean Society of Civil Engineers. 36(3): 427–437.
Othman A, Khairudin WM, Othman J, Ghani MA, Saudi ASM. 2017. Water flow measuring methods in small hydropower for streams and rivers-A study. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research. 12(24):14484–14489.
Pugliese A, Farmer WH, Castellarin A, Archfield SA, Vogel RM. 2016. Regional flow duration curves: Geostatistical techniques versus multivariate regression. Advances in Water Resources. 96: 11–22.
Pumo D, Noto LV, Viola F. 2013. Eco hydrological modeling of flow duration curve in Mediterranean river basins. Advances in Water Resources. 52: 314–327.
Rosburg TT. 2015. Flow duration curves and sediment yield estimation for urbanizing watersheds (Doctoral dissertation, Colorado State University). 80 p.
Sobhani B, Sarraf B, Azadi Mobaraki M, Hoseyni SA. 2013. Modeling of rain fall in the west and southwest of the Caspian Sea using spatial interpolation methods in the GIS environment. Journal of  Geography and Development. 11(30): 23–34   
Wagener T, Blöschl G, Goodrich D, Gupta H, Sivapalan M, Tachikawa Y, Troch P, Weiler M. 2013. A synthesis framework for runoff predictions in ungauged basins, in: chapt. 2, Runoff Predictions in Ungauged Basins, edited by: Blöschl, G., Sivapalan, M., Wagener T, Viglione A, Savenije H, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge UK. 11–28.
Wagener T, Sivapalan M, Troch PA, Woods R. 2007. Catchment classification and hydrologic similarity, Geogr. Compass. 1: 901– 931.
Yokoo Y, Sivapalan M. 2011. Towards reconstruction of the flow duration curve: development of a conceptual framework with a physical basis. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 15 (9): 2805–2819.
Zare Chahouki A, Salajegheh A, Mahdavi M, Khalighi S, Asadi S. 2013. Regional flow duration curve in arid regions for ungauged basins (Case study: Central Iran), Journal of Range and Watershed Management, Iranian Journal of Natural Resources, 66(2): 251–265. (In Persian).
Zhang X, Zhang L, Zhao J, Rustomji P, Hairsine P. 2008. Responses of stream flow to changes in climate and land use/cover in the Loess Plateau, China, Journal of Water Resource Research. 44 (7):1–12.
Zheng H, Zhang L, Liu C, Shao Q, Fukushima Y. 2007. Changes in stream flow regime in headwater catchments of the Yellow River basin since the 1950s. Journal of Hydrological Process. 21(7): 886–893.

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 01 August 2018
  • Revise Date: 31 December 2018
  • Accept Date: 12 March 2019

Share

How to cite

Statistics