Rainfall-Runoff Modeling of Three Wadis in the Northern Area of UAE

Abstract

Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modeling System model is used to estimate the water storage in the lakes of three dams due to rainfall events in three wadis located in the northern area of the United Arab Emirates ͑UAE͒. Like other arid and semiarid regions, rainfall events in the three wadis are limited, scattered, and random. For model calibration, the simulated results were compared with the observed water storage data for several storm events. A family of rainfall-runoff/storage curves was developed based on the duration and intensity of rainfall events. These curves can be used for prediction of surface water runoff in the three wadis and water storage in the dams in response to different rainfall events. The same rainfall event in wadi Bih generates almost twice as much of the surface water runoff generated in each of wadi Ham and wadi Tawiyean. This is mainly attributed to the large catchment area of wadi Bih as compared to the other two wadis. The sensitivity analysis revealed that the amounts of water storage in dams are highly correlated to the assigned curve number especially for the cases of wadi Bih and wadi Tawiyean.

Flood-Runoff in Semi-Arid and Sub-Humid Regions, a Case Study: A Simulation of Jianghe Watershed in Northern China

“…HEC-HMS has previously been used to simulate the rainfall-runoff processes in the arid, semi-arid, humid and sub-humid geo-climatic environments in many countries [10][11][12][13]. It has optional models for the sub-mechanisms.…”

Modeling Groundwater Flow and Seawater Intrusion in the Coastal Aquifer of Wadi Ham, UAE

“…The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is located in an arid region, with an average annual rainfall of about 110 mm (Sherif et al , 2011. Like other arid regions, drought conditions may prevail for successive years and, hence, surface water resources are mostly regarded as unreliable for water resources planning and management.…”

Analysis of rainfall, PMP and drought in the United Arab Emirates

“…Subyani (2011) and Almazroui et al (2012) recently investigated rainfall characterization in Saudi Arabia (arid region). Sherif et al (2009Sherif et al ( , 2011 investigated rainfall properties in three wadi catchments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They concluded that rainfall events with durations of 2.5 h or more * Correspondence to: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.…”

“…A review of research on tropical rainfall characterization revealed that most of detailed studies were conducted for the humid regions (Jackson, 1977). Whilst few studies were conducted on the UAE rainfall characterization, most of these were spatially extended to a few wadi catchments (Sherif et al, 2011). In this study, rainfall characteristics in the UAE are explored.…”