Podcast Beta
Questions and Answers
What does the coefficient of variation represent?
What is a compound weir?
What does conditional probability measure?
What is a confidence interval?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the role of the continuity equation in hydrology?
Signup and view all the answers
What is convective precipitation caused by?
Signup and view all the answers
What does the correlation coefficient indicate?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the purpose of a current meter?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the median in a continuous frequency distribution?
Signup and view all the answers
What is defined as the least value of discharge in a stream during a hydrological year?
Signup and view all the answers
In a distribution of a discrete variate, what does the mode represent?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the purpose of model calibration in hydrology?
Signup and view all the answers
What does meteorology study?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following definitions describes a moment in statistics?
Signup and view all the answers
What does meteorological radar utilize to measure objects and terrain?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the extended hydrological forecast period known as?
Signup and view all the answers
What does the term 'actual evapotranspiration' refer to?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following defines 'annual maximum series'?
Signup and view all the answers
What is 'advection' in the context of hydrology?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following best describes 'annual storage capacity'?
Signup and view all the answers
How is 'antecedent precipitation index' utilized in hydrology?
Signup and view all the answers
What does 'annual runoff' indicate?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the significance of 'active basin area' in hydrology?
Signup and view all the answers
Which statement accurately describes 'annual series'?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the primary purpose of conducting a pumping test?
Signup and view all the answers
Which term describes the region where rainfall is significantly less due to being on the lee side of a mountain?
Signup and view all the answers
Which instrument is specifically designed to measure the depth of water from precipitation?
Signup and view all the answers
What does 'rainfall intensity' refer to?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the significance of a rainfall intensity return period?
Signup and view all the answers
In the context of quantiles, what is quartile?
Signup and view all the answers
What does 'rainfall excess' specifically refer to?
Signup and view all the answers
Which term describes the variation in depth of rainfall both spatially and temporally?
Signup and view all the answers
What does skewness refer to in relation to a frequency distribution?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the primary purpose of a staff gauge in a water resource system?
Signup and view all the answers
How is the standard error of estimate defined?
Signup and view all the answers
Which term is used to describe the maximum flood flow that a dam spillway can handle without causing damage?
Signup and view all the answers
What characterizes a stationary process in statistics?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the standard deviation commonly used to measure?
Signup and view all the answers
What does a stage hydrograph show?
Signup and view all the answers
In what form can the stage-discharge relation be expressed?
Signup and view all the answers
Study Notes
Hydrology Terminology
- Accumulative Precipitation Gauge: Used for measuring precipitation in locations only visited periodically.
- Active Basin Area: The area of a basin excluding any portions that don't drain into it.
- Actual Evaporation: The quantity of water vaporizing from an open water surface or the ground.
- Actual Evapotranspiration: The combined amount of water evaporated from soil and transpired by plants in natural conditions.
- Advection: The horizontal transfer of air mass properties due to wind.
- Altitude: Vertical distance measured from mean sea level to a point, object, or level.
- Annual Exceedence Series: A series of values representing independent events like floods, occurring above a chosen base value. The count of values equals the number of years in the record.
-
Annual Flood:
- (1) The highest peak discharge in a single water year.
- (2) A flood that happens, on average, once per year.
- Annual Flow: The total volume of water flowing in a year, usually referring to a drainage area or river basin's output.
- Annual Maximum Series: An extreme values series containing the highest annual values.
- Annual Minimum Series: An extreme values series containing the lowest annual values.
- Annual Runoff: The total volume of water flowing in a year, commonly referring to the outflow from a drainage area or river basin.
- Annual Series: A hydrological series where each term represents a specific characteristic or element for a given year.
- Annual Storage: The volume of water that can be held in a reservoir to adjust for seasonal variations in inflow and demand.
- Annual Storage Capacity: The maximum volume of water that can be stored in a reservoir to manage seasonal variations in inflow and demand.
- Antecedent Precipitation Index (API): A weighted sum of past daily rainfall amounts used to estimate soil moisture.
- Coefficient of Variation: A dimensionless statistical parameter representing the variability of a stochastic variable in time or space. Calculated as the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean.
- Compound Weir: A weir composed of two or more sections that might be of different types and/or dimensions.
- Conceptual Hydrological Model: A simplified mathematical representation of some or all processes within the hydrological cycle. It uses hydrological concepts expressed mathematically and linked in a time and space sequence that mimics natural processes.
- Conditional Probability: The probability of an event (E) happening given the occurrence of another event (F).
- Confidence Interval: An interval that includes the true value with a specific probability, determined by the statistics of the sample.
- Confidence Level: The probability that a confidence interval contains the true value.
- Confidence Limits: The upper and lower boundaries of a confidence interval.
- Constant-Rate Dilution Gauging: A procedure to determine flow characteristics such as velocity or discharge. A known concentration of tracer is injected at a constant rate, and the tracer's concentration is measured downstream when good mixing occurs.
- Continental Hydrology: The study of hydrological processes in continental areas, focusing on the land-based portion of the water cycle.
- Continuity Equation: An equation describing the conservation of mass in a flowing substance like water.
- Convective Precipitation: Precipitation stemming from convective motions in the atmosphere.
- Correlation: An interdependence or relationship between two measurable variables.
- Correlation Coefficient: A measure of the interdependence between two variables. The product-moment correlation coefficient is the covariance divided by the product of their standard deviations.
- Crest Gauge (Crest Gage): A device measuring the maximum water level reached.
- Cumulative Precipitation Gauge: A precipitation gauge employed at stations visited at infrequent intervals.
- Cup-Type Current Meter: A current meter with a rotating wheel fitted with cups that spins on a vertical axis.
- Current Meter: An instrument used to measure the velocity of water at a specific point.
- Median: The value that divides a continuous frequency distribution into two halves with equal frequency. For discrete data, it's the middle value in a ranked dataset when the number of data points is odd, or the average of the two central values if the number is even.
- Medium-Term (Extended) Hydrological Forecast: A forecast of a water body's future regime for a period between 2 and 10 days from the time of issuance.
- Meteorological (Weather) Radar: A system using beamed, repeated, and timed electromagnetic radiation to detect, locate, quantify, and measure the altitude of objects, as well as generating terrain images.
- Meteorology: The study of the atmosphere.
Minimum Annual Discharge/Flow
- Minimum Annual Discharge: Lowest discharge value in a stream during a hydrological year.
- Minimum Annual Flow: Lowest discharge value in a stream during a hydrological year.
- Mode: The variate that occurs most frequently in a distribution of a discrete variate. For a continuous variate, it represents the variate with the maximum probability density.
- Model: A representation of an object, process, or system in any form. In hydrology, a model is commonly a mathematical representation of a basin, water system, or a set of data.
Model Calibration and Fitting
- Model Calibration (Model Fitting): The process of adjusting a model's parameters, either based on physical considerations or mathematical optimization, to ensure the best possible agreement between observed data and the model's estimated output.
- Moment: A statistical measure representing the mean value of a variable raised to a power. It can be calculated about the origin or around a fixed value. When taken around the mean, they are called central moments.
- Monitoring (Pumping Test): The process involves pumping water out of a well at specific rates while regularly measuring piezometric levels at the pumped well and nearby observation wells. Data collected from these tests helps determine aquifer parameters around the pumped well.
- Quantile: A class of partition values of a variate that divide the total frequency of a population or sample into a given number of equal proportions. Examples include quartiles (n = 4), deciles (n = 10), etc.
- Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF): A prediction of the amount of precipitation.
- Radar (-Rainfall) Equation: An equation defining the maximum range achievable by a specific radar system in terms of its design parameters and the effective target echo area.
- Rain: Liquid water precipitation, either in drops larger than 0.5 mm in diameter or smaller, dispersed drops.
- Rain Gauge (Rain Gage): An instrument to measure rainfall depth at a point.
- Rain Recorder: An instrument that measures and records rainfall depth over time.
- Rain Shadow: An area located on the leeward side of a mountain or range with significantly less rainfall than the windward side.
- Rainfall (Depth): The amount of liquid water falling from the atmosphere, expressed as a depth of water on a horizontal surface.
- Rainfall Distribution: The spatial and temporal variation of rainfall depth.
- Rainfall Excess: The portion of rainfall directly contributing to surface runoff.
- Rainfall Intensity: The rate of rainfall, expressed in units of depth per unit time.
- Rainfall Intensity Pattern: The distribution of rainfall rate over time during a storm.
- Rainfall Intensity Return Period: The average time interval (in years) between occurrences of rainfall of a specified intensity and the next rainfall of equal or greater intensity.
- Rainfall Maximization: A procedure used to determine probable maximum precipitation.
- Rain-Gauge Shield (Rain-Gage Shield): A device that protects a rain gauge from wind, snow, or other factors that could affect measurements.
- Random Error: The deviation between a computed, estimated, or measured value and the true value. The deviation behaves randomly, like a variable chosen from a probability distribution of such errors.
- Random Process: A stochastic process often referred to as a "stochastic process."
Simulation and Skewness
- Simulation: The reproduction or representation of an event or a sequence of related events in a model, for example, of a water resource system.
- Skewness: Asymmetry in a frequency or probability distribution.
-
Spillway Design Flood:
- (1) The flood used in the design calculations for a dam's spillway.
- (2) The maximum flood flow that can be passed without causing damage or a significant risk to the stability of the engineering structure.
- Staff Gauge (Staff Gage): A graduated scale used for measuring water surface levels in a stream channel, reservoir, lake, etc.
- Stage: The vertical distance from a gauge datum to the water surface of a stream, lake, or reservoir (or groundwater observation well).
- Stage Gauge (Stage Gage): A graduated scale used for measuring water surface levels in a stream channel, reservoir, lake, etc.
- Stage Hydrograph: A graph depicting the temporal variation of hydrological data like stage, discharge, velocity, or sediment load.
Stage-Discharge Relation
- Stage-Discharge Relation: The relationship between stage and discharge at a river cross-section. It's represented as a curve, table, or equation(s).
- Standard Deviation: A commonly used measure of dispersion in a frequency distribution or a set of values. It's equal to the positive square root of the variance.
- Standard Error: The positive square root of the variance of a statistic's sampling distribution.
- Standard Error of Estimate: An expression for the standard deviation of observed values around a regression line. It estimates the likely variation in predictions based on a regression equation.
- Standard Project Flood: The discharge expected from the most severe combination of meteorological and hydrological conditions reasonably characteristic of the geographic region, excluding extremely rare combinations.
- Standardized Variate: A variable transformed into a standardized form with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one by subtracting the population or sample mean and dividing by the population or sample standard deviation.
- Stationary Process: A stochastic process whose probability distribution is completely independent of time. It's stationary in the wide sense if its mean and variance are constant over time. The statistics of samples from a stationary process may vary due to sampling variability but not due to sample size or location within the population.
Studying That Suits You
Use AI to generate personalized quizzes and flashcards to suit your learning preferences.
Related Documents
Description
Test your knowledge of key hydrology terms and concepts with this informative quiz. From precipitation measurements to evapotranspiration, explore essential vocabulary that defines the science of water. Perfect for students and professionals involved in environmental science and hydrology.
