Stream flow Simulation for The Upper Awash Basin.
No Thumbnail Available
Files
Date
2004-07
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The Awash Basin is the most utilized and most developed basin in Ethiopia. After the
construction of the Koka dam the feature of the basin is changed in large extent. Heavy
rainfall in the upstream catchments causes large inflow discharges to Koka Lake. At
times where the water level is already close to the maximum water level, the excess
water must be discharged through the spillways in order to prevent overtopping of the
dam. The discharge through the spillway, together with the water discharged through
the power plant turbines, has in the past caused flooding in the downstream areas, most
notably in August 1996. To prevent the downstream areas from flooding, the water
level in the lake could be lowered in advance provided the inflows could be forecasted.
For this reason, the FEWS-SFM was calibrated for the Upper Awash Basin using five
years (1991-1995) of stream flow and rainfall records. The model was verified using
another five years data (1996-2000). Ground observed data were used for the
calibration for both the physical characteristics of the basin and the dynamic inputs:
rainfall and potential evapotranspiration.
Simulation was done in three scenarios of defining the basin. First the basin is defined
to have a single outlet at Melka Hombole hydrologic station. The second scenario
divided the basin into six subbasins and the last scenario is made by dividing the
catchment to thirty five subbasins. It is seen that the second scenario represented the
rainfall runoff to an acceptable range both visually and statistically. The Nash and
Sutcliff goodness of criteria (R2) was used for testing the model performance. R2 =
0.63 was obtained for the calibration and the verification yield R2 = 0.6.
The simulation of the basin has underestimated the peak summer (July – August) and
overestimated flow from March to June. The dry period flow is underestimated.
However, further refinement of the DEM and investigation on the DEM and
investigation on the way soil properties influencing the rainfall runoff process in the
model may improve the model main rainy period flow and overestimation of the small
rainfall period. From the results obtained further investigation on the way soil
properties influencing the rainfall runoff process in the model is necessary.
Key words: Awash, calibration, DEM, FEWS-SFM, flood, Koka, rainfall runoff,
simulation, verification.
Description
Keywords
Awash; Calibration; Dem; Fews-Sfm; Flood; Koka; Rainfall Runoff; Simulation; Verification