CIV E 634-SURFACE WATER HYDROLOGY
SPRING 2013
MIDTERM EXAM, MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2011

Name: ___________________ Red ID: _________________ Grade: _______

Instructions: Closed book, closed notes. Use engineering paper. When you are finished, staple your work in sequence, and return this sheet with your work.

Answer only ten (10) questions.

  1. What is deep percolation in the context of L'vovich's water balance? Why is deep percolation only a small fraction of precipitation? Explain the physical basis for this behavior.

  2. How does the event runoff coefficient differ from the yield runoff coefficient? What physical variable is likely to describe its variability?

  3. Contrast the contributions of Dalton, Penman, and Monteith in evaporation modeling.

  4. Why is the time of concentration calculated by the kinematic wave model likely to be much less than that calculated with a storage concept or diffusion wave?

  5. Why is the NRCS runoff curve number more appropriate to model direct runoff than indirect runoff?

  6. Why is the Mockus approach to runoff generation, for the most part, better than Horton's? Explain.

  7. What is the mean albedo of the Earth's surface? How does albedo vary from rain forests to deserts? Is it possible for humans to change the albedo of the ground surface? How?

  8. What are the four physical processes responsible for the formation of rain?

  9. What is the root cause of El Niño? How often does an El Niño event likely to recur? What are the effects of an El Niño event?

  10. What is the range of return periods used in design? What is the return period used for freeboard hydrograph design for large (Class c) dams?

  11. How much is the mean annual global terrestrial precipitation, in mm? How was this value obtained? At what part of the climatic spectrum are droughts likely to be more persistent? Give an example.

  12. Under what design and other circumstances is a ford-bridge appropriate as a solution for stream/river crossing?
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