The behavior of small water impoundments in southern Arizona : a coupled stochastic and deterministic model

Abstract

A computer simulation model is presented for evaluating the performance of small water impoundments. A model has been constructed based on the previous work done by Almestad (1983). The model was modified in this study for use in the desert scrub vegetation cover type of southeastern Arizona at Tombstone, Arizona. Stochastic model of precipitation was used to generate a synthetic time stream of precipitation. A deterministic runoff model was used to determine runoff volume. The SCS method was used for the purpose. Temperature model was used to simulate daily maximum temperature that was used to determine volume of water that evaporates from a pond. A computer program was developed using the temperature runoff and precipitation model to synthesize the water regimes of ponds for a range of pond geometries, pond sizes, watershed sizes and seepage rates. Output of the program consists of statistical information for annual spillage, annual retention, and the number of days a pond is dry on an annual and monthly basis.