Abstract Description: The United States faces a growing number of aging flood control dams in need of rehabilitation. These dams have largely performed well upon reaching their design service life. Questions emerge as to their hydrologic design adequacy going forward into their next service life upon rehabilitation. Are the empirical values used within the hydrologic modeling of a dam accurate enough to commit funding towards their rehabilitation or risk lives and resources downstream of them? Calibration of the hydrologic model for the dam, using recording style rain and reservoir staff gages, becomes possible during the early stages of planning. Results obtained through this calibration effort may afford more confidence within the hydrologic models used for dam rehabilitation design. An example of hydrologic calibration and analysis of a sample dam will be demonstrated.
Learning Objectives:
Learn the basic principles of hydrologic model calibration, per the NRCS Runoff Curve Number Method, to verify or improve upon empirical values of RCN, Tc, and the DUH-PRF.
Learn the basic data needs to perform a hydrologic model calibration to assist with, and specifically related to, engineering planning and design of a dam being considered for rehabilitation.
Provide an example hydrologic calibration, using on site gage data for rainfall and reservoir stage, for a sample dam being considered for rehabilitation in Pennsylvania.
