Watershed Engineering and Management-

Introduction

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Fall 2020
Watershed Engineering and Management

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➢ Instructor:
➢ Iman Mallakpour, Ph.D.
➢ Office: https://fullerton.zoom.us/j/99706893438
➢ Zoom office Hour: Thursday 18:00-19:00 (By appointment)
➢ Phone: (657) 278-3012
➢ Email: [email protected]
➢ Textbook:
Textbook:
• Hydrology and the Management of Watersheds. 2013. 4th Edition. K.N. Brooks,
P.F. Folliott, J.A. Magner. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 533 pp.

Reference Books:
• Elements of Physical Hydrology. 1998 Hornberger, G.M., Raffensperger, J.P.,
Wiberg, P.L., Eshleman, K.N. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
• Integrated Watershed Management: Principles and Practice. 2nd edition, by
Isobel W. Heathcote, John Wiley & Sons, 2009
• Integrated Watershed Management: Connecting People to their Land and Water.
2007. H.M. Gregersen, P.F. Ffolliott, and K.N. Brooks. CAB International.
• Environmental Hydrology. 2004. 2nd Edition. A.D. Ward and S.W. Trimble.
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Lewis Publishers
➢ Assessment:
Class Participation and Quiz 5%
Homework 10%
Class Project 20%
Exam 1 20%
Exam 2 20%
Final Exam 25%

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➢ Course Tentative Schedule:
Date Topics Suggested Reading
Overview, watershed analysis and hydrologic
August 27, 2020 Chapter 1 and 2
processes
Water budget and Precipitation and abstracts
September 3, 2020 Chapter 3
from precipitation
September 10, 2020 Hydrologic pathways of water flow Chapter 4 and 5
September 17, 2020 Streamflow analysis Chapter 6
September 24, 2020 Groundwater-surface water exchange Chapter 7
October 1, 2020 Review Session & Exam I
Watershed modeling using the Hydrologic
October 8, 2020
Modeling System (HMS)
October 15, 2020 Soil erosion and control Chapter 8
October 22, 2020 Sediment supply and transport Chapter 9

October 29, 2020 Fluvial processes and stream management Chapter 10

November 5, 2020 Vegetation and Stream flow

November 12, 2020 Review Session & Exam II

November 19, 2020 Water quality characteristics Chapter 11

November 26, 2020 Riparian communities and wetland Chapter 13
Tools and emerging technologies/ Project
December 3, 2020 Chapter 16
Presentations
December 10, 2020 Final Exam

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 Watershed management

Perspective of watershed management is that water and land resources must be managed
in concert with one another.

Watershed management is a term used to describe the process of implementing land use
practices and water management practices to protect and improve the quality and
quantity of the water and other natural resources within a watershed by managing the use
of those land and water resources in a comprehensive manner.

Integrated Watershed Management (IWM) is the process of organizing and guiding land,
water, and other natural resource use on a watershed to provide desired goods and
services to people without affecting adversely soil and water resources. Embedded in the
concept of integrated watershed management is the acknowledgement of the
interrelationships among land use, soil, and water, and the linkages between uplands and
downstream areas. IWM deals not only with the protection of water resources but also
with the capability and suitability of land and vegetative resources to be managed for the
production of goods and services in a sustainable manner.

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A watershed can be described as the area of
land that delivers runoff water, sediment
and dissolved substances to a river.

A watershed is a hydrological unit that

catches, stores and releases water through
networks of streams into the main rivers,
which finally end in their estuaries by the
sea.

A watershed is also an integration of

ecosystems, land and water and their
mutually interacting elements.

Watersheds are the systems used to study

the hydrologic cycle, and they help us
understand how human activities influence
components of the hydrologic cycle.

A watershed is a hydrologic unit often used

as a physical-biological unit and a
socioeconomic-political unit for the
planning and management of watershed
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resources.
 Watersheds
“Any river is really the summation of the whole valley. To think of it as nothing but water
is to ignore the greater part.” -Hal Borland, This Hill, This Valley

No matter where you live, your home is

situated in a watershed: a land area that
drains to a central location, such as a lake,
river, or ocean.
Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes,
and they all have important roles in the
landscape. The fourth-largest watershed in
the world, the Mississippi River watershed,
reaches from the Allegheny Mountains in
the eastern United States all the way to the
Rocky Mountains in the West,
encompassing regions from 31 states and
two Canadian provinces in its drainage
area.

https://www.cwp.org/watershed101/ 8
 History of watershed management
Hydrologic concepts and concerns about land use and water date back to some of the
earliest recorded history. Detailed timeline of the history of hydrology and watershed
management is presented in Box 1.1.

The Rise and Fall of Civilizations and water

This book lists twelve environmental
problems facing humankind:
1.Deforestation
2.Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil
fertility losses)
3.Water management problems
4.Overhunting
5.Overfishing
6.Effects of introduced species on native
species
7.Overpopulation
8.Increased per-capita impact of people
9. Anthropogenic climate change
10.Buildup of toxins in the environment
11.Energy shortages
12.Full human use of the 9
Earth’s photosynthetic capacity
 History of watershed management

Historic trends in water and watershed management

Watershed issues are changing over time as land use changes in both areal
coverage and intensity of use, and as water allocation changes.
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 History of watershed management

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http://ubclfs-wmc.landfood.ubc.ca/webapp/IWM/course/introduction/watershed-history-9/
 History of watershed management

Managing water resources for sustainability

requires alignment and integration among
water sectors. While it also requires
additional effort, the outcome provides
multiple benefits that accrue from the
collaboration, interdisciplinary planning, and
pooled funding.

https://resources.ca.gov/CNRALegacyFiles/docs/california_water_action_plan/Final_Californ
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ia_Water_Action_Plan.pdf
 Stream Orders
The concept of stream order assigns numerical designations that indicate where in a
watershed drainage system a certain stream segment lies. The smallest flows from
upland areas, as well as springs and seep sources that maintain defined stream beds
throughout the year are first-order streams.
1) the smallest tributaries (i.e., streams without tributaries) are designated first order
2) two first-order streams combine to form a second-order stream, two second-order
streams combine to form a third-order stream, etc.;
3) when a stream of higher order (e.g., 3) combines with a stream of lower order (e.g.,
2) the resulting channel is given the higher order (3). Streams of lower order entering
higher-order channels do not influence the order of the channel.

Some characteristics of streams can be inferred by simply knowing their order. For
example, first-order streams are dominated by overland flow of water; they have no
upstream concentrated flow. Because of this, they are most susceptible to non-point
source pollution problems and can derive more benefit from wide riparian buffers than
other areas of the watershed.

The upper-most watersheds in a river basin

are called headwater watersheds, and are the
most upstream watersheds that transform
rainfall and snowmelt runoff into streamflow. 13
 A Geomorphologic Perspective

Headwater streams contribute most of the water reaching the downstream areas in river basins.
First-order streams in mountainous regions occur in steep terrain and flow swiftly through V-
shaped valleys. High rainfall intensities can erode surface soils and generate large magnitude
streamflow events with high velocities that can transport large volumes of sediment downstream.
As water and sediment from headwater streams merge with higher order streams, sediment is
deposited over floodplains as rivers reach sea level.

Transition zone exists between the steep

headwater steams and the lower zone of
deposition at the mouth of major rivers and is
typically characterized by broad valleys, gentle
slopes, and meandering streams.

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Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUCs) are used by the U.S. Geological
Survey to classify four levels of hydrologic units. The boundaries of
major watersheds in the US have been established and organized
into a hierarchy of hydrologic units.
Regions: 2 Digit IDs or Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUCS): 21 in US
Sub-regions: 4 Digit HUCs: 221 in US
Accounting Units: 6 Digit HUCs: 378 in US
Cataloging Units: 8 Digit HUCs: 2264 in US

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 The boundaries of major watersheds in the US have been
established and organized into a hierarchy of hydrologic units
Regions: 2 Digit IDs or Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUCS): 21 in US
Sub-regions: 4 Digit HUCs: 221 in US
Accounting Units: 6 Digit HUCs: 378 in US
Cataloging Units: 8 Digit HUCs: 2264 in US

Surf your Watershed: https://mywaterway.epa.gov/ 16

 INTEGRATED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT

IWM involves an array of vegetative (nonstructural) and engineering (structural) practices.

Soil conservation practices, constructing dams, and establishing protected reserves can be
tools employed in IWM as can be land-use planning that entails developing regulations to
guide timber-harvesting operations, road-building activities, urban development, and so forth.
The unifying focus in all cases is placed on how these varying activities affect the
relationships among land, water, and other natural resources on a watershed. The common
denominator or the integrating factor is water.
Integrated watershed management is
the process of organizing and guiding
land, water, and other natural resource
use on a watershed to provide desired
goods and services to people without
affecting adversely soil and water
resources. Embedded in the concept of
integrated watershed management is
the recognition of the interrelationships
among land use, soil, and water, and
the linkages between uplands and
downstream areas.

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 INTEGRATED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
CHALLENGES

1- Preventive strategies aimed at preserving existing sustainable land-use practices;

2- Restorative or rehabilitation strategies designed to overcome identified problems or improve

conditions to a desirable level where desirable is defined in ecological, environmental, and
political terms.

Both strategies respond to the same types of problems. However, in one case the objective is to
prevent a problem from occurring while in the other case the objective is to improve conditions
once the problem has occurred.

A watershed management plan provides actions to:

- protect a watershed or prevent damage to it
- mitigate the effects of land use to an acceptable level
- restore degraded environments
- optimize the availability of water resources

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SUSTAINABLE USE AND DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
- Land and Water Scarcity

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 Coping with Hydrometeorological Extremes

Even though we call them extreme events, it

should be recognized that floods and droughts
occur naturally and are not necessarily rare.

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WATERSHEDS, ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT,
AND CUMULATIVE EFFECTS

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 Hydrologic Cycle and the Water Budget-
Chapter 2
Hydrology

Hydrology is the science and study of water. Science that studies the occurrence and
movement of water on and under Earth’s surface, water’s chemical and physical properties,
water’s relationship to biotic and abiotic environmental components, and human effects on
water.
Hydrology is a subject of great importance for people and their environment. Practical
applications of hydrology are found in tasks such as the design and operation of hydraulic
structures, water supply, wastewater treatment and disposal, irrigation, drainage,
hydropower generation, flood control, navigation, erosion and sediment control, salinity
control, pollution abatement, recreational use of water, and fish and wildlife protection. The
role of applied hydrology is to help analyze the problems involved in these tasks and to
provide guidance for the planning and management of water resources”.
Water flows in accordance with physical laws and in many ways alters the landscape features
of watersheds. In conjunction with climate, water affects the development of soils and the
type of vegetative cover that grows on a watershed. The quantity, quality, and timing of
water that flows from watersheds are dependent on the interactions of climate and the
activities of people on the watershed. An understanding of the causes, processes, and
mechanisms of water flow on earth and through its watersheds provides the underpinning
for the study of watershed hydrology.
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 PROPERTIES OF WATER and STATE OF WATER

Water is the most abundant liquid on Earth

• It is necessary for life
• Involved in most significant meteorological processes
• Fundamental factor in determining Climate

• Special properties:
– Liquid phase is denser than solid (ice) phase
– Maximum density occurs at 4°C
– Water has higher values of specific heat and latent heat than any other natural material
– Water is used as a biological solvent
– Water polarity results in the important properties of cohesion, adhesion, and capillarity.

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 Inventory of water on Earth
Lakes, soil moisture,
atmosphere, rivers
Water on land Deep groundwater 1%
2.7% (750-4000 m)

Shallow groundwater 11%

(<750 m)
11%

77%
97%

Ice caps and glaciers

Oceans

A fundamental concept is that water is neither lost nor gained from the earth over time. The
portion of water that is in various types of storage can be approximated over periods of time.
If we consider the total water resource on the earth, only about 2.7% is freshwater of which
about 77% exists in polar ice caps and glaciers. About 11% of water is stored in deep
groundwater aquifers leaving about 12% for active circulation. Of this 12%, only 0.56%
exists in the atmosphere and in the biosphere.

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After Berner and Berner, 1987
 THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

The hydrologic cycle describes the continuous recirculatory transport of the waters of the
earth, linking atmosphere, land, and oceans. The process is quite complex, containing many
subcycles. To explain it briefly, water evaporates from the ocean surface, driven by energy
from the sun, and joins the atmosphere, moving inland. Once inland, atmospheric
conditions act to condense and precipitate water onto the land surface, where, driven by
gravitational forces, it returns to the ocean through streams and rivers. During this trip,
water is converted in all phases: gas, liquid, and solid.

A few facts to remember about the hydrologic cycle are as follows:

- Solar energy provides the energy that drives and sustains the cycling of water on
earth.
- There is no beginning or end to the cycle.
The supply of water on earth is constant, but the allocation of water in storage or in
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circulation can vary with time.
 THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

**** CLOUD FORMATION

* * * * PRECIPITATION

EVAPORATION

SNOWMELT FROM
RUNOFF FALLING RAIN
WT

FROM WET
SPRING OVERLAND VEGETATION
FLOW AND
IL PUDDLES
INTERCEPTION TRANSPIRATION
FROM STREAMS
INFILTRATION
DEPRESSION AND
STORAGE OPEN WATER
WT
SOIL MOISTURE
WATER TABLE (WT)
WT

GROUNDWATER
BASE FLOW
STREAM
FLOW LAKE
OR
SEA
IMPERMEABLE LAYER
(IL)
The hydrological cycle of the earth is the sum total of all processes in
which water moves from the land and ocean surface to the atmosphere 26
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and back in form of precipitation. Modified from Brutsaert, 2005. Hydrology. Cambridge University Press