An attempt to consider very rapid runoff (emr) in hydrological modeling

Abstract

Hydrological Reference Manual for the Design of Drainage Minor Works, published by the FHIS valuable information is presented maximum intensities of rainfall for the entire Honduran and infiltration tests conducted in different soil types. Where in the case of the maximum intensity of 5 minutes 77% of the stations easily exceed 100 mm/h (strong intensities) and 60% of the infiltration tests show an initial infiltration exceeding 100 mm/h. The availability of this information and especially their magnitudes allowed us to realize the idea several years ago attempting to use this information to be included in a hydrologic model and represent the very rapid runoff (EMR), is to say when rainfall intensity is higher than soil infiltration capacity.

As a first test was introduced in a conceptual hydrological model a simple linear function to represent the EMR. Depending this fonction, of the rainfall intensities of 5 min, of the infiltration capacity in 5 min and the rain in mm / day. Observing that the same rain increased EMR dependent increase in CMR ratio, a parameter that governs the function.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5377/rct.v0i11.1074

Revista Ciencia y Tecnología, No. 11, diciembre 2012 pp 61-69