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[Procedures] |
DESCRIPTION
RAINFLO is an online deterministic/conceptual, distributed, event-driven, rainfall-runoff computational model specifically suited for the simulation of flood flows in midsize and large watersheds/basins.
RAINFLO calculates design flood hydrographs when presented with suitable storm precipitation and applicable geometric, physiographic, soil, hydrologic and hydraulic characteristics of the watershed/basin.
RAINFLO is an online server-side model which can be run from anywhere where there is web access. It updates seamlessly, so you will never have to worry about having an old version of the model. You are always running the latest version.
RAINFLO is deterministic because the stream channel routing component is calculated with the Muskingum-Cunge method, which simulates the diffusion wave model. The model is conceptual because the hydrologic abstraction is calculated with the NRCS runoff curve number, which simulates the conceptual filling of the soil reservoir.
RAINFLO is distributed because it calculates flood flows, as they vary in time and space throughout the watershed/basin, at any point in the stream network where two subbasins [watersheds] join together.
RAINFLO is event-driven because it simulates flood flows in situations where baseflow is small and does not appreciably contribute to the flood peak.
RAINFLO is a rainfall-runoff model because it seeks, by means of a suitable transform, to convert effective rainfall into runoff. The transform is accomplished by convoluting the NRCS unit hydrograph with the effective storm pattern, to obtain the flood hydrograph at each subbasin outlet.
RAINFLO is computational because its discretizes the governing equations of mass and momentum conservation, as expressed in the kinematic/diffusion wave model, in the space-time domain by using a finite-difference scheme.
RAINFLO is based on more than fifty years of research on rainfall-runoff processes, including abstraction with the runoff curve number, transform with the unit hydrograph, and stream channel routing with the diffusion wave.