An investigation was made of the flash flood of July 9, 1943, on the Blacksburg watershed with a view toward an approximation of the actual amount of water passing as run-off during the storm, as well as the peak rate of flow. All the available data have been reviewed with the above purpose in mind. The unit graph method has been applied to this investigation as the most logical method of solution. With the data already available plus that gathered by the writer, the unit graph method was readily applied. In this connection, the writer has kept continuous rainfall records at the Mineral Industries Building and continuous water level records at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute dam. After arriving at a solution as to the actual run-off conditions at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute dam following the above storm, further investigation was made of that point of the drainage area above the Blacksburg depot of the Norfolk and Western Railroad. The capacities of both the culvert on Eakia Street and the channel above Eakia Street were determined by calculations, and an opinion based on the review of observed data was offered as to why the culvert did not properly take care of the run-off from the drainage area above it. Using the calculated maximum rate of run-off, a cross section of Strouble’s Creek at the site of the proposed Virginia Polytechnic Institute sewage disposal plant has been analyzed. A solution has been offered as to low high the maximum flood crest of Strouble’s Creek at that point will reach. This information is necessary because the sewage plant must be build above the flood waters. / M.S.

Engineers engaged in watersupply or power projects are often faced with the problem of dealing the adequency of the supply, as well as that of the extremes of flow on which the safety of hydraulic structures depends. / Master of Science

Benefits from a flood control project that accrue to a landowner are defined as the amount the landowner is willing to pay for the reduction in flood risk. The primary method utilized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to estimate a residential landowner's benefits is the property damages avoided method. Only under a set of restrictive assumptions will this method accurately estimate landowner willingness to pay. Therefore, several alternative techniques, such as the hedonic price method, are approved for use by the Corps but it is not known how they compare. The purpose of this study is to examine the benefit measures from the property damages avoided and hedonic price methods and two new measures, restricted willingness to pay (RWTP) and restricted willingness to accept (RWTA). The measures RWTP and RWTA are biased estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) where the direction of the bias is known. In addition, the methods that calculate these measures, the RWTP and RWTA methods, do not require data on income or an aggregator for the prices of all goods not in the analysis. Benefit estimates from the hedonic price and RWTP methods provide upper and lower bounds on WTP for non-marginal reductions in flood risk and converge for marginal reductions. / Master of Science