How to Calculate Worst Case Discharge for a Pipeline

[ChrisSlinko]

I'm doing research on how I can calculate worst case discharge for a pipeline. I'm guessing I would use Spatial Analyst/Flow Direction and Flow Length. The data that I should be using is a DEM converted to Points or contours a buffer around the pipeline and a polyline of the pipeline. Please let me know if I'm on the right track or if I do need another extension. Please be specific. Thanks.

[Anonymous User]

Hi Chris, you're on the right track.
Back in the day i used to model drainage channels in open pit mines. In those cases i would burn the channel into the dem to ensure the water flowed into and down the channel. You can then use 'flow accumulation' to model a particular rainfall event. This would give you a worst case scenario assuming no infiltration, evaporation or influence from soils and vegetation.

If your doing a lot of hydrological work you should check out:
The Hydrology community
The Arc Hydro forums

The Arc Hydro tools, which you can download from the community site, also provides a bunch of tools and models to automate much of the work.