Halff Associates asked us to compute existing and ultimate condition flows for the Harris Branch watershed.
Halff provided an HEC-HMS rainfall runoff model for the 11.6 square mile Harris Branch watershed. The model represented the watershed as 49 subbasins with connecting channels represented as modified Puls routing reaches. Halff also provided land use shape files. We acquired digital soil type maps and overlaid these onto the digital land use maps and subbasin boundary lines. We wrote scripts in Extensible Markup Language (XML) to generate a land use / soil type summary for each subbasin. Using MS Excel, we assigned appropriate SCS curve numbers to represent soil losses for each subbasin. We performed these steps using land use data representing both existing (2003) conditions and ultimate conditions. We then input these parameters to the HEC-HMS model. We also input storage-flow data provided by Halff into the HEC-HMS model, and defined total storm rainfall depths in accordance with a USGS report provided by Halff. We then executed the existing and ultimate conditions models to obtain flow hydrographs. We compared peak flows with those computed in a previous study of the area.
We wrote a report detailing the steps taken to generate the ultimate conditions HEC-HMS model, and included comparisons of model parameters and results to the existing conditions model. We also generated data tables for inclusion into the Technical Support Data Notebook required by FEMA for floodplain mapping studies. Templates for these tables were provided by Halff.
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