Calculation of Flow in Open Channels

This volume is the fourth of a series of Technical Reports issued in connection with the planning and execution of the notable system of flood protection works now being built in the Miami Valley.
The Miami Valley, which forms a part of the large interior plain of the central United States and comprises about 4000 square miles of gently rolling topography in southwestern Ohio, is one of the leading industrial centers of the country. From the great flood of March, 1913, which destroyed in this valley alone over 360 lives and probably more than 100 million dollars' worth of property, there resulted in an energetic movement to prevent a recurrence of such a disaster. This movement developed gradually into a great cooperative enterprise for the protection of the entire valley by one comprehensive project. The Miami Conservancy District, established in June, 1915, under the newly enacted Conservancy Act of Ohio, became the agency for securing this protection.
The aim in writing this particular volume, Part IV of the Technical Reports, is to set forth the present state of knowledge relating to the calculation of the flow of water in open channels. This topic is one whose mastery has depended almost exclusively upon the gradual collection of data through observation and experiment. The subject has been under continuous study for more than a century, and has been a particularly active field in recent years. The appearance of data in widely scattered publications in the leading European countries, as well as in the United States, during the last decade, has rendered particularly urgent a survey of the whole field such as is offered in this report.