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Evaluation of SCS-CN Method for Incorporation of Antecedent Precipitation

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Towards Water Circular Economy (RWC 2024)

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Abstract

Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) method currently known as Natural Resources Conservation Services curve number (NRCS-CN) method, is one of the extensively used reliable, simple, and attractive model in practical hydrology for direct surface runoff (rainfall-excess) prediction of a given storm, initially developed for direct surface runoff estimation in small and medium agricultural watersheds of the USA, later extended to other geographical regions of different land use land cover, and climatic conditions of different parts of the earth viz, to rural, urban, forest, experimental. Besides of various improvements, the method has also been extended to a number of hydrological application beyond its initial purpose. This study evaluates incorporation of antecedent precipitation (P5) in place of the antecedent moisture (Mishra and Singh 2004 models) in the Soil Conservation Services-Curve Number (SCS-CN) method using a large set of rainfall-runoff data from 234 small to large experimental watersheds from USDA-ARS. Three variants of the proposed models (M3, M6, and M9), Mishra and Singh models (M2, M5, and M8), and existing SCS-CN (M1, M4, and M7), out of which the first two models of proposed, Mishra and Singh, and existing models are one parameter or CN based and the third model of each are two parameters (CN and λ) models are considered. Employing the widely used performance evaluation goodness of fit (GoF) criterion of root mean square error (RMSE) and ranking based grading system indicate that all the variants of proposed models in turn performing far better than variants of Mishra and Singh model followed by variants existing model, respectively.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to Department of Water Resource Development and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, India, for providing all necessary facilities to carry out this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of WRD&M, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Roorkee, 247 667, Uttarakhand, India

    Esmatullah Sangin & S. K. Mishra

  2. National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, 247 667, Uttarakhand, India

    Pravin R. Patil

  3. Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Roorkee, 247 667, Uttarakhand, India

    Sumit Sen

  4. Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Helmand University, Lashkargah, Helmand, Afghanistan

    Esmatullah Sangin

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  1. Esmatullah Sangin
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  2. Pravin R. Patil
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  3. S. K. Mishra
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  4. Sumit Sen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Esmatullah Sangin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee, India

    Ankit Agarwal

  2. Department of Water Resources Development and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

    Basant Yadav

  3. Water Resources System Division, NIH, Roorkee, Roorkee, India

    Manish Nema

  4. Environmental Hydrology Division, NIH Roorkee, Roorkee, India

    Mukesh Sharma

  5. Department of Hydro and Renewable Energy, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee, India

    Arun Kumar

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Sangin, E., Patil, P.R., Mishra, S.K., Sen, S. (2024). Evaluation of SCS-CN Method for Incorporation of Antecedent Precipitation. In: Agarwal, A., Yadav, B., Nema, M., Sharma, M., Kumar, A. (eds) Towards Water Circular Economy. RWC 2024. Springer Proceedings in Earth and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60436-2_10

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