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Discussion of “Interfacing the geographic information system, remote sensing, and the soil conservation service-curve number method to estimate curve number and runoff volume in the ASIR region of Saudi Arabia” by Fawzi S. Mohammad, Jan Adamowski

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Abstract

The soil conservation service curve number (SCS-CN) method is one of the most commonly used methods to compute the direct runoff from a rainfall event. Since the method was established, numerous researches were undertaken to improve the method through accurate estimation of its parameter and especially the curve number (CN). However, the essence of the SCS method, as an event-based Hortonian mechanism method, remained unchanged. The main assumption of the method related to the rainfall input is that the rainfall is continuous in time and uniform over the watershed. Mohammad and Adamowski (2015) paper apparently used the SCS method to estimate the annual runoff using the annual rainfall as one cumulative rainfall input value, which is a violation of the event-based principle of the method and of the assumption of the continuity of the rainfall event.

To re-estimate the average annual runoff more realistically for the Asir region, Saudi Arabia, daily rainfall data from 14 rainfall stations are used for calculating the resulting runoff depths, on a daily event-by-event rainfall basis, throughout the whole simulation period. The resulting runoff depths are added for each year, and the total cumulative annual runoff values for each year are averaged to get the average annual runoff. The runoff values based on the previously mentioned procedure are an upper limit of the actual average annual runoff as the underlying SCS equations discard evaporation and similar long-term losses. Nevertheless, the average runoff values obtained in the discussion paper are an order of magnitude (at least five to tenfold) lower than the ones of the original paper. An equation is proposed to obtain a more realistic estimate of the average annual runoff, to be used with the average annual rainfall as an input, if the annual value is the only available rainfall information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

    Ayman G. Awadallah

  2. Department of Irrigation and Hydraulics, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

    Mahmoud S. Farahat

  3. Department of Irrigation and Hydraulics, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Dokki, Giza, 12613, Egypt

    Mohammed Haggag

Authors
  1. Ayman G. Awadallah
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  2. Mahmoud S. Farahat
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  3. Mohammed Haggag
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Correspondence to Ayman G. Awadallah.

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Awadallah, A.G., Farahat, M.S. & Haggag, M. Discussion of “Interfacing the geographic information system, remote sensing, and the soil conservation service-curve number method to estimate curve number and runoff volume in the ASIR region of Saudi Arabia” by Fawzi S. Mohammad, Jan Adamowski. Arab J Geosci 10, 214 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-2984-2

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