INTRODUCTION TO HYDROLOGY

Hydrology
- science of water.
- science that deals with the occurrence, circulation and distribution of the earth water and earth’s atmosphere.
- concerned with the water in streams and lakes, rainfall and snowfall, snow and ice on the land and water
occurring below the earth’s surface in the pores of the soil and rocks.
Classifications:
• Scientific Hydrology - concerned chiefly with academic aspects.
• Engineering or Applied Hydrology - concerned with engineering applications
Engineering hydrology deals with:
o estimation of water resources
o study of processes such as precipitation, runoff, evapotranspiration, and their interaction
o the study such as floods and droughts, and strategies to combat them.
Role of Hydrologists:
• help solve local and global problems related to the overabundance, scarcity, or quality of water. They do so using
their understanding of various physical, chemical, and biological processes in the water cycle and soil-water
system.
• undertake a wide range of activities in order to monitor, manage and protect the water environment. Many
activities and studies would be impossible without hydrometric data measurement, collection and archiving.
Much of hydrology involves the interpretation and analysis of such data, and hydrologists frequently develop and
use Mathematical models to mimic the physical processes they examine.
• Tasks include:
o Design and operation of hydraulic structures
o Water supply
o Wastewater treatment and disposal
o Irrigation
o Drainage
o Hydropower generation
o Flood control
o Navigation
o Erosion and sediment control
o Salinity control
o Pollution abatement
o Recreation use of water
o Fish and wildlife protection
Importance of Hydrologic Engineering Design:
• Hydrologic design provides a service
• Level of service must be defined and acceptable risk of failure must be determined (local drainage ordinances)
• Cost and site characteristics are typical constraints
• Occurrence, timing, and amount are the key aspects of hydrology from an engineering perspective.
• Problems are created by lack of water or too much water in a location at a moment in time (e.g., flood)

HYDROLOGY VS HYDRAULICS:
• Hydrology:
o based on observations that are generalized to practice
• Hydraulics:
o tends to start from basic physical principles, then make approximations for practice

Hydrologic cycle
- aka water cycle
- cycle that involves the continuous circulation of water in the Earth-atmosphere system.
- Of the many processes involved in the water cycle, the most important are evaporation, transpiration,
condensation, precipitation, and runoff.
 A convenient starting point to describe the cycle is in the oceans. Water in the oceans evaporates due to the heat
energy provided by solar radiation. The water vapour moves upwards and forms clouds. While much of the clouds
condense and fall back to the oceans as rain, a part of the clouds is driven to dry land areas by winds. There they
condense and precipitate onto the land mass as rain, snow, hail, sleet etc. A part of the precipitation may evaporate back
to the atmosphere or move down to the ground surface.
A portion of the water that reaches the ground enters the earth’s surface through Infiltration, enhance the moisture
content of the soil and reach the groundwater body. Vegetation sends a portion of the water from under the ground
surface back to the atmosphere through the process of transpiration. The precipitation reaching the ground surface after
meeting the needs of filtration and evaporation moves down the natural slope over the surface and through a network
of gullies, streams and rivers to reach the ocean. The ground water may conic to the surface through springs and other
outlets after spending a considerably longer time than the surface. The portion of the precipitation which by a variety of
paths above and below the surface of the earth reaches the stream channel is called runoff. Once it enters a stream
channel, runoff becomes stream flow. Each path of the hydrologic cycle involves one or more of the following aspects: (i)
transportation of water, (ii) temporary storage and (iii) change of state.
The quantities of water going through various individual paths of the hydrological cycle in a given system can be
described by the continuity principle known as water budget equation or hydrologic equation.
Evaporation
- occurs when the physical state of water is changed from a liquid state to a gaseous state.
- can occur on raindrops, and on free water surfaces such as seas and lakes.
- can even occur from water settled on vegetation, soil, rocks and snow.
Condensation
- process by which water vapor changes it's physical state from a vapor, most commonly, to a liquid.
- Water vapor condenses onto small airborne particles to form dew, fog, or clouds.
- brought about by cooling of the air or by increasing the amount of vapor in the air to its saturation point.
Precipitation
- process that occurs when any and all forms of water particles fall from the atmosphere and reach the ground.
Interception
- process of interrupting the movement of water in the chain of transportation events leading to streams. The
interception can take place by vegetal cover or depression storage in puddles and in land formations such as rills
and furrows.
Infiltration
- physical process involving movement of water through the boundary area where the atmosphere interfaces with
the soil.
- The surface phenomenon is governed by soil surface conditions. Water transfer is related to the porosity of the
soil and the permeability of the soil profile.
Percolation
- movement of water through the soil, and it's layers, by gravity and capillary forces
Transpiration
- biological process that occurs mostly in the day.
- Water inside of plants is transferred from the plant to the atmosphere as water vapor through numerous
individual leave openings. Plants transpire to move nutrients to the upper portion of the plants and to cool the
leaves exposed to the sun. Leaves undergoing rapid transpiration can be significantly cooler than the surrounding
air.
Runoff
- flow from a drainage basin or watershed that appears in surface streams.
- consists of the flow that is unaffected by artificial diversions, storages or other works that society might have on
or in a stream channel
- The flow is made up partly of precipitation that falls directly on the stream surface runoff that flows over the
land surface and through channels, subsurface runoff that infiltrates the surface soils and moves laterally
towards the stream, and groundwater runoff from deep percolation through the soil horizons.
Storage
- There are three basic locations of water storage that occur in the planetary water cycle. Water is stored in the
atmosphere; water is stored on the surface of the earth, and water stored in the ground.
WEATHER BASICS (METEOROLOGY): ATMOSPHERIC WATERS

Meteorology
- Science that deals with the study of the atmosphere and its phenomena especially with weather
Weather
- Mix of events that happen each day in our atmosphere. Weather is different in different parts of the world and
changes over minutes, hours, days and weeks.
- Most weather happens in the troposphere, the part of Earth’s atmosphere that is closest to the ground.
- Condition of the atmosphere at a particular place over a short period of time in terms of:
o Wind
o Precipitation
o Temperature
o Sunshine
o Humidity
o Pressure
o Cloud
o Visibility
1st Set of Weather Elements
The sun causes all our weather because it heats the Earth unevenly. The contrast between Earth’s hot parts and
cold parts turns the atmosphere into a powerful engine. This engine keeps the cold and warm air moving, thus makes
changes in air pressure. Those air pressure changes cause wind:
o Sunshine
o Air pressure
o Wind
Climate
- An average portrait of weather conditions in a specific place over a long period.
- considers the average weather conditions and its variability to give a long-term view of the weather being
experienced by a certain area
Climate of the Philippines

• tropical and maritime

Temperature
• mean annual temperature is 26.6°C.
• coolest months fall in January with a mean temperature of 25.5°C
• warmest month occurs in May with a mean temperature of 28.3°C.
• Latitude is an insignificant factor in the variation of temperature while altitude shows greater contrast in
temperature.
Humidity
• refers to the moisture content of the atmosphere.
• Due to high temperature and the surrounding bodies of water, the Philippines has a high relative humidity.
• The average monthly relative humidity varies between 71 percent in March and 85 percent in September.
Rainfall
• most important climatic element in the Philippines.
• varies from one region to another, depending upon the direction of the moisture-bearing winds and the location
of the mountain systems.
• The mean annual rainfall of the Philippines varies from 965 to 4,064 millimeters annually.
The Seasons
• Rainy Season (June to November)
• Dry Season (December to May)
o Cool Dry Season (December to February0
o Hot Dry Season (March to May)
Climate Types
• Type I - two pronounced season: dry from November to April and wet during the rest of the year. Maximum rain
period is from June to September.
• Type II - no dry season with a very pronounced maximum rain period from December to February. There is not a
single dry month. Minimum monthly rainfall occurs during the period from March to May.
• Type III - no very pronounced maximum rain period with a dry season lasting only from one to three months,
either during the period from December to February or from March to May. This type resembles types I since it
has short dry season.
• Type IV - rainfall is more or less evenly distributed throughout the year. This type resembles type 2 since it has no
dry season.

Typhoons have a great influence on the climate and weather conditions of the Philippines. A great portion of the rainfall,
humidity and cloudiness are due to the influence of typhoons. They generally originate in the region of the Marianas and
Caroline Islands of the Pacific Ocean which have the same latitudinal location as Mindanao. Their movements follow a
northwesterly direction, sparing Mindanao from being directly hit by majority of the typhoons that cross the country.
This makes the southern Philippines very desirable for agriculture and industrial development.