Rainfall–runoff modelling and water balance analysis for Al-Hindiyah barrage, Iraq using remote sensing and GIS

Abstract

Investigation of rainfall–run-off modelling is an important subject to develop any available means to water supply, which maintains human life such as run-off harvesting method. This study aims to analyse and understand the rainfall–run-off relationship in a part of Babil city, Iraq. Curve number which is a function of land use, soil texture, soil moisture and land slope is used in this study. Remote sensing and GIS are used to analyse the data and to produce the run-off depth map for the study area. Then, the run-off depth is used with rainfall to investigate the relationship between them using linear correlation. This study showed a strong linear relationship between rainfall and run-off (R² = 0.992). It indicates that in the absence of rainfall data, run-off data can be used to estimate rainfall amount. Also, the study revealed through water balance analysis that there is an average monthly change in storage.

Keywords:

• Run-off–rainfall modelling
• curve number
• water balance
• potential run-off coefficient

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the staffs who worked for producing this paper and enhanced the final visualization of the maps. They also want to thank the Ministry of Higher Education of Iraq for providing scholarship to the author to pursue his PhD at Universiti Putra Malaysia.