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Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) Method: Current Applications, Remaining Challenges, and Future Perspectives

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydrology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 May 2023) | Viewed by 2150

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Sanitary Engineering and Water Management, Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Land Surveying, University of Agriculture in Krakow, 31-120 Krakow, Poland
Interests: surface hydrology; flood; drought; modelling of hydrological processes; climate change; urban hydrology
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Predicting runoff in ungauged or poorly gauged watersheds is one of the key problems in applied hydrology. Thus, simple methods for runoff estimation are particularly important in hydrologic applications such as flood design or water balance calculation models. Likely the most well-documented and simple conceptual method for predicting runoff is the Soil Conservation Service–Curve Number (SCS-CN) method. Due to its simplicity and its extensive documentation, this method has became one of the most popular techniques among researchers, engineers, and practitioners, and is widely used in many hydrological applications. However, numerous studies have also shown that the SCS-CN method has important limitations that can reduce the accuracy and increase the uncertainty of predicted runoff. Nevertheless, the method is receiving ever-increasing attention in the hydrologic literature, with many contributions that enhance the current understanding and widen its range of applicability. This is because, even after many years of constant development and research, key challenges remain—for example:

  • Improving the SCS-CN method runoff predictions and preserving its current level of simplicity.
  • Moving towards a unique generally accepted procedure for CN determination from rainfall runoff data and consideration of spatial variability in CN estimation.
  • Investigation of the gains and implications of altered initial abstraction ratios.
  • Investigation of the scale dependency of CN values.
  • Implementation of various soil moisture accounting systems and CN.
  • Extending and adopting the existing CNs documentation in a broader range of regions, land uses and climatic conditions.
  • Usefulness of SCS-CN in forest catchments characterized by an increased complexity of runoff forming mechanisms.
  • Modification of SCS-CN method to decrease the uncertainty of predicted runoff.
  • Utilizing novel modeling, geoinformation systems, and remote sensing techniques to improve method performance and efficiency.
  • The application of the SCS-CN method in modern event-based and continuous hydrological models.

Accordingly, the aim of this Special Issue is to present the latest developments in SCS-CN methodology, including but not limited to novel applications, theoretical and conceptual studies broadening the current understanding; studies extending the method’s application in other geographical regions or other scientific fields; substantial evaluation studies; and key advancements towards addressing the remaining challenges.

Dr. Konstantinos X. Soulis
Dr. Andrzej Walega
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Soil Conservation Service–Curve Number (SCS-CN) method
  • Natural Resources Conservation Service–Curve Number (NRCS-CN) method
  • rainfall-runoff modeling
  • hydrological modeling
  • hydrological response
  • direct runoff
  • CN determination
  • conceptual model
  • GIS

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 2246 KiB  
Article
Use of Nonofficial Intermittent Waterfall Occurrence Data for the Validation of an Infiltration Model for Volcanic Jeju Island, Korea
by Minseok Kang and Chulsang Yoo
Water 2023, 15(12), 2260; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15122260 - 16 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1505
Abstract
This study attempts to validate an infiltration model, the Soil Conservation Service–Curve Number (SCS–CN) method, using the nonofficial intermittent occurrence data of Eongtto Falls on Jeju Island, Korea. Simply due to the limited official continuous runoff data concerning Jeju Island, the validation of [...] Read more.
This study attempts to validate an infiltration model, the Soil Conservation Service–Curve Number (SCS–CN) method, using the nonofficial intermittent occurrence data of Eongtto Falls on Jeju Island, Korea. Simply due to the limited official continuous runoff data concerning Jeju Island, the validation of a newly set SCS-CN method for Jeju Island was practically impossible. Instead, this study tries to use nonofficial data for this purpose. This study focuses on the intermittent occurrence of Eongtto Falls, which is one of the most famous tourist attractions on the island. Various records of Eongtto Falls can be collected from newspapers, personal homepages, and various social networking services. The SCS-CN method is, in this study, used to check if effective rainfall occurs or not. In fact, this approach is quite effective on Jeju Island, as most streams are fully dry during non-rain periods. Evaluation of the SCS-CN method is based on the analysis of a contingency table, which measures the consistency of the occurrence of effective rainfall events and waterfall records. Additionally, to quantify the results of the contingency table, some measures such as accuracy, hit ratio, and false alarm ratio are used. This analysis is carried out using all the rainfall events from 2011 to 2019, and the derived results confirm that the newly set SCS-CN method is far better than the conventional one used thus far. Full article
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