Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2016KY256B

Assessing the curve number method for modeling urban watersehd stormwater runoff across Louisville, Kentucky

Institute: Kentucky
Year Established: 2016 Start Date: 2016-03-01 End Date: 2017-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $4,844 Total Non-Federal Funds: $10,366

Principal Investigators: Christopher Day

Abstract: This study will make use of existing rainfall-runoff data observed in an earlier investigation by Evaldi and Moore (1994). That study included 6 small watersheds across the Louisville metro area with data including total storm rainfall, storm duration, total storm runoff, and proportion of land cover for each watershed for 3 separate storms of varying intensities. Watershed elevation and soil data will be provided by the US Geological Survey National Elevation Database (NED) and Natural Resources Conservation Service in digital raster format at a resolution of 10 meters. These data will be used to drive the HEC-HMS rainfall-runoff model (developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers as a lumped-parameter model) that routes surface flow towards a basin outlet. This model allows the user to select various surface infiltration loss methods (e.g. SCS CN, Green and Ampt) when modeling and calibrating surface runoff in response to an observed storm event. This research will perform a sensitivity and calibration analysis of the SCS CN loss method compared to the Green-Ampt method for each watershed to determine if current CN values accurately reproduce the stormwater runoff volume generated by each storm and which CN values are most suitable for the Louisville area following model calibration.