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    PublicationOpen Access
    Sensitivity Analysis of Parameters Affecting Wetland Water Levels: A Study of Flood Detention Basin, Colombo, Sri Lanka
    (MDPI, 2023-04-02) Herath, M; Jayathilaka, T; Azamathulla, H.M; Mandala, V; Rathnayake, N; Rathnayake, U
    Wetlands play a vital role in ecosystems. They help in flood accumulation, water purification, groundwater recharge, shoreline stabilization, provision of habitats for flora and fauna, and facilitation of recreation activities. Although wetlands are hot spots of biodiversity, they are one of the most endangered ecosystems on the Earth. This is not only due to anthropogenic activities but also due to changing climate. Many studies can be found in the literature to understand the water levels of wetlands with respect to the climate; however, there is a lack of identification of the major meteorological parameters affecting the water levels, which are much localized. Therefore, this study, for the first time in Sri Lanka, was carried out to understand the most important parameters affecting the water depth of the Colombo flood detention basin. The temporal behavior of water level fluctuations was tested among various combinations of hydro-meteorological parameters with the help of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). As expected, rainfall was found to be the most impacting parameter; however, apart from that, some interesting combinations of meteorological parameters were found as the second layer of impacting parameters. The rainfall–nighttime relative humidity, rainfall–evaporation, daytime relative humidity–evaporation, and rainfall–nighttime relative humidity–evaporation combinations were highly impactful toward the water level fluctuations. The findings of this study help to sustainably manage the available wetlands in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In addition, the study emphasizes the importance of high-resolution on-site data availability for higher prediction accuracy.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Computation of Time of Concentration Based on Two-Dimensional Hydraulic Simulation
    (MDPI, 2022-10-07) Zolghadr, M; Rafiee, M.R; Esmaeilmanesh, F; Fathi, A; Tripathi, R.P; Rathnayake, U; Gunakala, S. R; Azamathulla, H. M
    : Time of concentration (TC) is a parameter in runoff estimation, used to study and design different types of projects in watersheds. Any error in TC calculation leads to an inaccurate estimation of the design flow, which can lead to over-sizing or under-sizing of designed facilities that can have great economic and environmental consequences. Therefore, choosing the correct method to estimate TC is of great importance. Due to the diversity of estimation methods in the literature, the obtained TC values are different. This study aims to present a new method to calculate TC, based on its main concept, i.e., the time required for a water parcel to reach its outlet from the farthest hydrological point of a watershed. A two-dimensional hydraulic simulation was used to model the water parcel travel. A watershed was selected as a case study, and its time of concentration was determined by salt solution tracing. The field measurement results were used for calibration of the numerical simulation model. Meanwhile, 31 empirical relations in the literature were reviewed to determine the most accurate ones. Estimated TC values were compared with the measured ones, and the relative error percentage was used to evaluate the accuracy of the result. In the empirical TC methods, the maximum error was above 300%, and the minimum error was 6.7% for the field studied area. The relative errors of hydraulic simulation outputs were between 3 and 27%. The results showed that only three empirical methods, namely Simas and Hawkins, SCSlag, and Yen and Chow, had the least errors respectively equal to 6.7%, 8.660%, and 13.5%, which can be recommended for the studied area and those with similar hydrological characteristics. On the other hand, hydraulic simulation is also introduced as an efficient method to determine TC which can be used in any desired watershed.