Name:_____________________________


CE 394K Hydrology              Final Exam               Fall 1996

There are three questions on this exam. They are of equal value. You may use your class notes, text, homework solutions and other reading materials to do this exam.

Before doing the exam, please read and sign the following statement:

I will do this examination without assistance from anyone else, and without discussing any aspect of it with my classmates.

Signature: ________________________________

The text of this examination can be found on internet at:

http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/maidment/ce394k/ce394k.fin

The electronic file used to prepare this text can be found at

ftp.crwr.utexas.edu
under directory /pub/hydclass
from which it can be downloaded via anonymous ftp as:

Word 7.0 format final.doc

Rich Text format final.rtf

Hypertext Markup Language (html) final.htm

If you wish to download one of these files so that you can prepare your solution electronically, that is fine, but I will not grade a solution that is longer than 6 pages, or 2 pages per question. I want your examination solution turned in on paper by 5PM on Thursday 12 December in the box outside my office at ECJ 8.6. Because of potential complications with file conversions and the lack of time I will have to deal with them, I do not want your solution to be submitted electronically.

If you are unclear as to what I am asking on one of the questions or want some other clarification about what you can do on this examination, please email me at maidment@crwr.utexas.edu.

Question 1.

This semester we have studied the water balance at the land surface and the flow of water and the transport of constituents through the landscape. For each of the following topics I want you to identify the most important equation or principle that we studied. In each case, write the equation or define the principle and state briefly why you selected this equation or principle instead of alternatives that you might have chosen.

Question 2.

Select a particular geographic area with which you are familiar and pose a hydrologic problem that you wish to solve concerning that area. Try to make your problem as realistic as possible.

  • Draw a sketch of the area.

  • Define the problem that you wish to solve.

  • Specify the important variables in your problem and the spatial and temporal domain of your solution. How many values of these variables are going to be determined at what spatial locations and at what points in time?

  • What equations or methods are you going to use to solve your problem?

  • How will you determine the values of the physical parameters required by these equations or methods?

  • Present the solution to the problem. If you need to make up some synthetic input data to make the solution realistic, do so.

  • Make an assessment of your solution. What are its limitations and weaknesses? If you were working as an engineer in a normal professional environment, how would you improve your solution?

    • Question 3

    Part (a)

    A storm of 5 inches of rainfall occurs in two hours on a 1 square mile watershed having an SCS curve number of 85 and a time of concentration of 45 minutes. Determine the runoff hydrograph at the outlet of this watershed. What is the peak discharge of this hydrograph?

    Part (b)

    A flood hydrograph is recorded with the following discharges at point A on a river:

    Time (hr)0123 45678910
    Flow (cfs)100002000030000 4000035000300002500020000 150001000010000

    Determine the discharge hydrograph at a point B, 20 miles downstream of point A, if there is no significant lateral inflow between the two points, the channel is approximately rectangular in shape with width = 250 ft, Mannings n = 0.045, and slope = 0.5 percent. The initial discharge in the channel is 10,000 cfs throughout the length of the channel.

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