THE HACHIOJI EXPERIMENTAL BASIN STUDY - STORM RUNOFF PROCESSES AND THE MECHANISM OF ITS GENERATION

The study discusses storm runoff processes and the mechanism of its generation in relation to dynamic responses of subsurface water in a small forested drainage basin located in the western suburbs of Tokyo, Japan. Intensive field observations were carried out for the period 1980-1983. In the drainage basin overland flow occurred from restricted areas on the valley floor. No significant overland flow was produced on the steep hillside slopes even during a heavy storm event. The maximum extent of the saturated area occupied only 1-4% of the total basin area. The main source of storm runoff was groundwater flow. The rapid and large amounts of groundwater discharge during a storm event could not be explained solely by the traditional concept of Darcian matrix flow. These phenomena were mainly attributed to rapid flow such as pipe flow which has velocities about as high as those of surface flows. The pulsating flow phenomenon was observed as a characteristic of pipe flow.