Determination of Potential Runoff Coefficient Using GIS and Remote Sensing

Abstract

Flash floods in arid environments are a major hazard feature to human and to the infrastructure. Shortage of accurate environmental data is main reason for inaccurate prediction of flash flooding characteristics. The curve number (CN) is a hydrologic number used to describe the storm water runoff potential for drainage area. This study introduces an approach to determine runoff coefficient in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia using remote sensing and GIS. Remote sensing and geographic information system techniques were used to obtain and prepare input data for hydrologic model. The land cover map was derived using maximum likelihood classification of a SPOT image. The soil properties (texture and permeability) were derived using the soil maps published my ministry of water and agriculture in Saudi Arabia. These soil parameters were used to classify the soil map into hydrological soil groups (HSG). Using the derived information within the hydrological modelling system, the runoff depth was predicted for an assumed severe storm scenario. The advantages of the proposed approach are simplicity, less input data, one software used for all steps, and its ability to be applied for any site. The results show that the runoff depth is directly proportional to runoff coefficient and the total volume of runoff is more than 136 million cubic meters for a rainfall of 103.6 mm.