Date of Completion

6-21-2011

Embargo Period

6-20-2012

Advisors

Guiling Wang, Amvrossios C. Bagtzoglou

Field of Study

Civil Engineering

Degree

Master of Science

Open Access

Campus Access

Abstract

Event hydrological modeling is used to study the watershed response to heavy rainfall over an urban basin in South Florida. Rainfall-runoff simulations are acquired using the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS). Three major storm events that occurred over the past five years in Florida are used in this study. Two of the events are from the wet season and the third is from the dry season. The urban basin namely C-11 is located in south-central Broward County, in Florida. Elevation and land use and cover data from the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) are used to delineate the sub-basins and the Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) map of the basin. The SCS-CN hydrograph method is used in HEC-HMS model to simulate infiltration losses and the watershed response to the different storm cases. The simulations are conducted using antecedent moisture condition (AMC) II and III, and initial abstraction ratio (λ) parameters of 0.05 and 0.2, as well as different scenarios of spillway gate openings. The runoff during the storm cases are performed using analysis of groundwater. Results show that the contributions of groundwater and pump control structures are necessary for better representation of the C-11 watershed. The model overestimates the runoff for June-2007 storm case due to lack of groundwater contribution into the simulation. Nevertheless, the other two simulated storm cases, August-2008 and March-2010 storm events, are in good agreement with observed data. Results from this research can be used to understand hydrologic characteristics of the C-11 basin.

Major Advisor

Emmanouil N. Anagnostou

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