ABSTRACT
It is unfortunate that in many semiarid regions of the Third World there are not sufficient long-term records of precipitation depth, duration, and intensity, and even fewer measurements of continuous discharge from the streams. For this reason, many of the sophisticated and advanced hydrologic methods are difficult to apply, since the mathematical models are much better than the data. To obtain a fairly complete picture of rainfall intensities in a given region, it is necessary to measure, record, and analyze readings from a number of automatic recording stations over a considerable period of time. Even in semiarid regions it is necessary to estimate the peak rates of discharge for designing spillways, culverts, waterways, and other outlet structures which will carry the outflow at the height of the rainy season when the soil storage capacity may be saturated. It is necessary to observe and estimate the minimum rainfall which will produce runoff for different watershed conditions.
