Routing

When it is necessary to subdivide a watershed in order to design a detention facility, a culvert or other hydraulic structure, or simply because the parameters of the hydrologic model like rainfall or curve number change in space, then the runoff hydrograph must be routed in order to account for the effects of travel through the storage basin or river reach.

There are two types of routing that will be presented in this section.  Storage routing through a detention basin, or behind an embankment where a culvert might be present, and river routing through a natural channel reach.

Detention Basin Routing                                                  River Reach Routing   
(Photo Courtesy of Univ. Abertay Dundee - SUDSnet)                                        (Photo Courtesy of NWS Northern Indiana)