HEC-HMS Lab 1: Single Basin HEC-HMS Modeling1

Learning outcomes
The objective of this lab is to explore the basic structure of HEC-HMS modeling system and create a simple
single basin model to simulate a rainfall event. By the end of this exercise, you will be able to:

1) Create a new HEC-HMS project with a single sub-basin model

2) Understand the inputs and outputs associated with HEC-HMS model
3) Run a simple HEC-HMS simulation and interpret the model’s output
4) Know the meaning and use of different files created by HEC-HMS. Specifically, the .hms file,
.basin file, .met file and the control file

Student Time Required: 50 minutes during lab + 50-100 minutes for lab exercise.

Data Inputs
Numerical Inputs

Rainfall : Hourly Rainfall Hyetograph in mm

Watershed Area: 100 km2
Curve Number : 75
Lag time: 60 minutes
Simulation Time step: 10 minutes
Simulation Start Time: 01/24/2020 09:00 AM
Simulation time period: 1-3 days

Text Inputs

Loss Method: SCS2

Transform Method3:SCS
Baseflow Method: None

Model: HEC-HMS 4.3 (Note: You should be able to do this exercise by using any version of HEC-HMS, but
the images in this document may not match exactly with what you see on your screen)

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Created by Venkatesh Merwade ([email protected]), material copied and redistributed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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We have not covered The SCS curve method in the lectures. This is a simple method for modelling infiltration and
determining the amount of runoff. For more information see here.
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A transform method is used to perform surface runoff calculations (e.g. Unit Hydrograph is a linear transform
method)

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Instructions
Start HEC-HMS

In most typical installations on windows system, you go to Start➔Programs➔HEC➔HEC-HMS 4.x. Thispath

may be different in computer labs. Just search for HEC-HMS and open the program.

Program Screen

The HEC-HMS interface consists of a menu bar, tool bar, and four panes. These panes are referred to as
the Watershed Explorer, the Component Editor, the Message Log and the Desktop as shown below.
More description on these panes, menus and tools is provided when they are used later in the
exercise.

Creating and Saving a new HEC-HMS project

On the main Menu, click on File➔New. First specify the location of where you want to save your
project, give a name (Lab1), accept the default unit system (Metric), and click on Create. Note that the
unit system may be different for different projects.

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 After you create a project, go to the directory where you saved the project using windows explorer, and
you will see that the following folders and files are created.4

Go ahead, and open the .hms (Lab1.hms) file using Notepad. You will see that it is a simple text file with
some basic information about the version of the model. Similarly, all the messages you see in the message
box in the HEC-HMS program are saved in text file (lab1.txt in this case).

Now that we have created a project, lets populate this project with the required elements to create a
simple hydrologic model.

Creating a Basin Model

A basin model represents the physical description of the watershed in a HEC-HMS project. First, an empty
basin model is created, and then it is populated with all the necessary information needed to create the
complete description of a watershed. In addition to including the physical description, a basin model also
includes information on the mathematical methods (or equations) that will be used in simulating the
hydrology of the basin, and the values for all the variables in those equations. The variables in all the
equations are called parameters because by changing the values for these parameters we can change the
output from the model.

To create a basin model, click on Components➔Basin Model Manager. Then click on New, and enter the
name of the basin and some basic description as shown below, and click Create.

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The file structure and naming is different on Mac

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You will see that a folder called Basin Models is now added in the Watershed Explorer pane, expand the
folder by clicking on the + sign, and you will see Basin 1. Click (or double click if single click does not work)
on Basin 1, and an empty basin (white window) will be added to the desktop pane. Save your project.

After a basin is created, all the tools (see below) necessary to populate the basin will also become
available.

In the above figure, these elements (from left to right) can be used to add sub-basin, reach, reservoir,
junction, diversion, source and sink, respectively. In this lab, we will create a single sub-basin that has an
area of 100 km2.

Create Sub-basin

This is done by using the create sub-basin tool ( ). Select the sub-basin tool, and click on the basin
model (white window in the desktop pane). You will be prompted to enter the name and description of
the new sub-basin as shown below.

Click Create. You will see that your basin model now has a sub-basin and all the information related to
this sub-basin can be entered in the component editor. A sub-basin is just one of the components of
your basin model.

Expand Basin 1 and Sub-basin 1 in the watershed explorer, and you will see the following (or a variation
of it):

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This information can be edited by using the component editor, and each label above is related to a
“method” in the basin model. You can think of a method as a hydrologic process, and then you have to
choose which equation you want to use to simulate this hydrologic process. The Canopy method allows
users to model the interception and evapotranspiration in the watershed. For this lab, we will ignore this
method. The surface method allows users to represent depression storage in the watershed. Again, we will
ignore surface method for this lab. The next method allows users to represent losses (water lost due to
infiltration) from rainfall. We know that not all rainfall becomes runoff because some of it is lost to
infiltration. The loss method lets users to model this infiltration by using various equations. We have only
briefly touched on this topic in class, but for completing this lab, just change the loss method from the
default “Initial and Constant” to “SCS Curve Number” for now by using the component editor as shown
below.

The transform method allows users to convert the rainfall (after subtracting losses) to streamflow
hydrograph. Change the transform method to SCS Unit Hydrograph. Baseflow method allows users to
account for existing flow conditions in the outlet stream. Again, we will ignore baseflow for this lab.

Finally, enter the area of the watershed (100 km2) in the area box of the component editor. If you see
input for latitude, longitude, etc., simply ignore those for now. The exact placement of this sub-basin is
not important for this lab.

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By specifying names for each method, we are basically telling the program which equation to use. To
execute these equations, we need to also specify values for all the variables (parameters) needed. The
values for these parameters are provided in the additional tabs that you see in the component editor for
each method. Because we only chose two methods (Loss and Transform), you will see that there is a tab
for each method in the component editor. Click on the Loss tab, and enter a value of zero for initial
abstraction (make sure you add this value, do not leave this box blank), 75 for curve number and zero for
impervious cover. We will learn about these variables later in the semester.

In the transform tab, enter a value of 60 min for lag time.

Do not input any information for options. Select “None” for Canopy, Surface and Baseflow methods.
Save your project. You have now entered all the necessary information needed to represent a
watershed in the basin model.

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Go back to windows explorer, and open the Basin1.basin file in notepad to see how all the information
in the basin model is stored in a simple text file.

Now that we have a basin model, we need some input to drive the simulation. The primary driver of a
hydrologic event is precipitation. Note that precipitation/rainfall are typically recorded using weather
stations or rainfall gauges. To provide rainfallinput, we first have to create a precipitation gage.

Creating a Precipitation Gage

To create a precipitation gage, go to Components Editor➔Time Series Data Manager. Select Data Types
as precipitation gages, and click on New.

Use the default name and provide some basic description for the gage. Click Create.

In the watershed explorer, you will see that a new folder called Time Series Data is created. Expand this
folder to see another folder called Precipitation Gages, and then Gage 1 is created inside the
Precipitation Gages folder. We will populate this gage with the information presented in the table below.
What we have here is hourly rainfall data in mm from 9 AM to 3 PM on Jan 24, 2020. Note that this
information is hypothetical!

Date Time Precipitation (mm)

1/24/2020 9:00 0.000
1/24/2020 10:00 5.080
1/24/2020 11:00 10.160
1/24/2020 12:00 2.540
1/24/2020 13:00 2.000
1/24/2020 14:00 1.000
1/24/2020 15:00 0.000

Select Gage 1 in watershed explorer, and change the time interval to match the data (one hour
incremental precipitation). Next, Click on the time-stamp label under Gage 1 in watershed explorer and
enter the Start date/time and end date/time for this gage as shown below in the component editor.

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Next, click on the table tab, enter the information from the table above to populate the table, and also
see the graph (hyetograph). What you see below is called Rainfall Hyetograph.

The gauge that we just created has the input that we need, but the program does not know that this gage
is located in the sub-basin we have created. To link this precipitation to the sub-basin, we need to create
a meteorologic model or Meteorologic file. Before you proceed, check that the units for rainfall are
correct.

Creating a Meteorologic Model

A meteorologic model or file contains meteorologic information to drive the hydrologic simulation. You
cannot run a HEC-HMS simulation without a meteorologic model/file. To create a meteorologic model,
go to Components➔Meterologic Model Manager, and create New. Use the default name and provide
some basis description and click Create.

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You will see a new folder called Meteorologic Models in the watershed explorer, and if you expand this
folder, you will see the Met 1 file that you just created. Under Met 1 label, you will see Specified
Hyetograph label. In the Meteorology Model Tab, change the Replace Missing option from “Abort” to
“Set to Default” as shown below. The earlier option (abort) will not let the model run if the simulation
time is longer than the rainfall duration.

Next, select the Basins tab in the Component editor, and then click Yes on Include sub-basins.

Next, select the specified hyetograph label in watershed explorer, and then select Gage 1 for subbasin-1
in the component editor as shown below. This step will tell the model that Gage 1 data is meant for Sub-
basin 1.

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Save your project. Now we have the watershed description and the input information. The next thing is
to provide some basic information on the time-step to run the model and the duration because we know
that the rainfall occurred from 9 AM to 3 PM, but the water from this event will keep flowing into the
river even after 3 PM so we need to specify when to start and end the simulation. This is done by creating
a control specification model.

Creating a Control Specification Model

The control specification file basically tells HEC-HMS how long the simulation will last and the time step
to continue the simulation. You cannot run a HEC-HMS simulation without creating a control specification
file. To create a control specification model, go to Components➔Control Specification Manager. and
create New. Accept the default name, enter some basic description, and the click Create.

You will now see that another folder called Control Specifications is now added in the watershed
explorer. Expand the folder, select Control 1 and enter the start date/time, end date/time and time
interval in the component editor as shown below.

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Basically, we will run the model longer than the rainfall event to make sure we account for all the flow
that is coming to the outlet from this event. Save your project. Once we have created the basin file,
meteorologic file and control specification file for the project, the model is ready for simulation.

Creating a Simulation Run

To create a simulation Run go to Compute➔Create Compute➔Simulation Run. Accept the default name
Run 1 and then accept all the default models and finish creating the run. If you had more than one model
for Basin, Meteorology and Control specification, you get to select them during this step. Becausewe have
only one model for each, the process is straight forward. Save the project.

Running a Simulation

Once a simulation run is created, select the simulation by going to the Compute tab in the watershed
explorer and select the run as shown below.

Next, go to the Compute tab on the menu bar, and select Compute Run [Compute➔Compute Run].

(Note: The simulation should not take more than a minute to run. If it is taking longer, cancel thesimulation
and check for the following:
• Your rainfall gage is included in the sub-basin
• Your control specification time period covers the rainfall event
• Your units are correct including the area of the watershed)
• Your replaced missing is set to Default for the Meteorologic model
• You have set the Initial Abstraction for your sub-basin to 0, and have not just left the box blank.

Looking at Results

To look at the results from simulation, you will use the Results Tab in the Watershed Explorer Window
and then select the Run as shown below (the name of the Run for you may be different)

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Expand Run1 (or whatever name given by you), and you will see Global Summary and the sub-basin
name. If you expand subbasin-1, you will see more options to explore results related to individual
component of this sub-basin such as losses and runoff.

Look the global summary and the Summary Table for subbasin-1. Because we have only one basin, the
information such as peak discharge and volume for the entire model is same as for Subbasin-1. If we
have more than one sub-basins, we will see the final results for the entire watershed in the global
summary table and individual results for sub-basins in the Summary Table for each basin.

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 Lab1 Exercise
There is no need to submit any work for Lab 1; however, the learning objectives from Lab 1 will be
evaluated through the report for Lab 2.

In the Lab 1 HEC-HMS model, create a new precipitation gage and a corresponding new Meteorologic
model for each of the rainfall events given below (use the same date as you used before to keep the
control specification model same for all simulations):

Event 2

Time Precipitation (mm)

09:00 0.00
10:00 2.00
11:00 3.08
12:00 5.16
13:00 5.00
14:00 2.54
15:00 2.00
16:00 1.00

Event 3

Time Precipitation (mm)

09:00 0.00
10:00 1.50
11:00 2.50
12:00 3.54
13:00 4.00
14:00 4.16
15:00 3.08
16:00 2.00

Event 4

Time Precipitation (mm)

09:00 0.00
10:00 3.00
11:00 3.28
12:00 2.90
13:00 2.90
14:00 2.90

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 15:00 2.90
16:00 2.90

Copy the rainfall data for Events 2, 3 and 4 from this handout into an Excel file. Save this excel file as
lab1.xlsx. Create rainfall hyetographs for each event and past them on a single page in MS Word. Make
sure your hyetograph has a title, axes names and units.

Using the lab1 HEC-HMS model, create a new simulation run for each event (check the control
specification file you created is valid for these events). For each run your basin and control specification
file is same, but your Meteorologic model/file will be different for each event. These are hypothetical
rainfall scenarios that you are creating to see how the hydrograph will change.

After each run, copy the time column and the output hydrograph (Total Flow column in the Time Series
Table from the results tab) in a MS Excel file and save this file. You can use one excel file to store results
from all simulations. By using the rainfall data in the Excel file and the hydrograph, create a presentation
quality graph to show both the rainfall hyetograph and discharge hydrograph (rainfall- runoff plot) in one
single plot for each event as shown below.

Make sure you include legend, axes titles and chart title. If you have never created a plot like this before,
here are some keywords: secondary axis, reverse order, chart type. Present all three plots on a single
page.

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