Hydrologic sciences


In its widest sense, hydrology encompasses the study of the occurrence, movement, and physical and chemical characteristics of water in all its forms within Earth’s hydrosphere. In practice, hydrologists usually restrict their studies to waters close to the land surface of Earth. Water in the atmosphere is usually studied as part of meteorology. Water in the oceans and seas is studied within the science of oceanography, water in lakes and inland seas within limnology, and ice on the land surface within glaciology. Clearly there is some overlap between these major scientific disciplines; both hydrologists and meteorologists, for example, have contributed to the study of water movement in the lower boundary layers of the atmosphere. All are linked by the fundamental concept of the water cycle (or hydrologic cycle), according to which the waters of the sea are evaporated, are subsequently condensed within the atmosphere, fall to Earth as precipitation, and finally flow in the rivers back to the sea.

Water is the most abundant substance on Earth and is the principal constituent of all living things. Water in the atmosphere plays a major role in maintaining a habitable environment for human life. The occurrence of surface waters has played a significant role in the rise and decline of the major civilizations in world history. In many societies the importance of water to humankind is reflected in the legal and political structures. At the present time, rising populations and improving living standards are placing increasing pressures on available water resources. There is, in general, no shortage of water on Earth’s land surface, but the areas of surplus water are often located far from major centres of population. Moreover, in many cases these centres prove to be sources of water pollution. Thus, the availability and quality of water are becoming an ever-increasing constraint on human activities, notwithstanding the great technological advances that have been made in the control of surface waters.

Study of the waters close to the land surface

Hydrology deals with that part of the water cycle from the arrival of water at the land surface as precipitation to its eventual loss from the land either by evaporation or transpiration back to the atmosphere or by surface and subsurface flow to the sea. It is thus primarily concerned with waters close to the land surface. It includes various component disciplines of a more specialized nature. Hydraulics is concerned with the mechanics and dynamics of water in its liquid state. Hydrography is the description and mapping of the bodies of water of Earth’s surface (including the oceans), with a particular concern for navigation charts. Hydrometry involves measurements of surface water, particularly precipitation and streamflow. Hydrometeorology focuses on water in the lower boundary layer of the atmosphere. Groundwater hydrology and hydrogeology have to do with subsurface water in the saturated zone, while soil water physics involves the study of subsurface water in the unsaturated zone. Engineering hydrology is concerned with the design of man-made structures that control the flow and use of water.

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Earth sciences: Hydrologic and atmospheric sciences

Underlying all the hydrologic sciences is the concept of water balance, an expression of the water cycle for an area of the land surface in terms of conservation of mass. In a simple form the water balance may be expressed as


where S is the change of water storage in the area over a given time period, P is the precipitation input during that time period, Q is the stream discharge from the area, E is the total of evaporation and transpiration to the atmosphere from the area, and G is the subsurface outflow. Most hydrologic studies are concerned with evaluating one or more terms of the water balance equation. Because of the difficulties in quantifying the movement of water across the boundaries of an area under study, the water balance equation is most easily applied to an area draining to a particular measurement point on a stream channel. This area is called a catchment (or sometimes a watershed in the United States). The line separating adjacent catchments is known as a topographical divide, or simply a divide. The following sections describe the study of the different elements of the catchment water balance and the way in which they affect the response of catchments over time under different climatic regimes.

Evaluation of the catchment water balance


Precipitation results from the condensation of water from the atmosphere as air is cooled to the dew point, the temperature at which the air becomes saturated with respect to water vapour. The cooling process is usually initiated by uplift of the air, which may result from a number of causes, including convection, orographic effects over mountain ranges, or frontal effects at the boundaries of air masses of different characteristics. Condensation within the atmosphere requires the presence of condensation nuclei to initiate droplet formation. Some of the condensate may be carried considerable distances as cloud before being released as rain or snow, depending on the local temperatures. Some precipitation in the form of dew or fog results from condensation at or near the land surface. In some areas, such as the coastal northwest of the United States, dew and fog drip can contribute significantly to the water balance. The formation of hail requires a sequence of condensation and freezing episodes, resulting from successive periods of uplift. Hailstones usually show a pattern of concentric rings of ice as a result.

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Direct measurements of precipitation are made by a variety of gauges, all of which consist of some form of funnel that directs the infalling water to some storage container. Storage gauges simply store the incident precipitation, and the accumulated water is usually measured on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Recording gauges allow rates of precipitation to be determined.

Rainfall volumes are usually converted to units of depth—volume per unit area. Measurements obtained from different types of rain gauges are not directly comparable because of varying exposure, wind, and splash effects. The most accurate type of gauge is the ground-level gauge, in which the orifice of the gauge is placed level with the ground surface and surrounded by an antisplash grid. Rain gauge catches decrease as the orifice is raised above the ground, particularly in areas subject to high winds. In areas of significant snowfall, however, it may be necessary to raise the rain gauge so that its orifice is clear of the snow surface. Various shields for the gauge orifice have been tried in an effort to offset wind effects. Wind effects are greater for snow than for rain and for small drops or light rainfall than for large drops.

An impression of the spatial distribution of precipitation intensity can be achieved through indirect measurements of precipitation, in particular radar scattering. The relationship between rainfall intensity and measured radar signals depends on various factors, including the type of precipitation and the distribution of drop size. Radar measurements are often used in conjunction with rain gauges to allow on-line calibration in converting the radar signal to precipitation amounts. The radar measurements are, however, at a much larger spatial scale. Resolution of 5 to 10 square kilometres is common for operational systems. Even so, this provides a much better picture of the spatial patterns of precipitation over large catchment areas than has been previously possible. The use of satellite remote sensing to determine rainfall volumes is still in its early stages, but the technique appears likely to prove useful for estimating amounts of precipitation in remote areas.

The measurement of inputs of snow to the catchment water balance is also a difficult problem. The most basic technique involves the snow course, a series of stakes to measure snow depths. Snowfalls can, however, vary greatly in density, depending primarily on the temperature history of snow formation. Accumulated snow changes its density over time prior to melting. Snow density can be measured by weighing a sample of known volume taken in a standard metal cylinder. Other techniques for measuring snowfall include the use of snow pillows, which record the changing weight of snow lying above them, or the use of rain gauges fitted with heating elements, which melt the snow as it falls. These techniques are subject to wind effects, both during a storm event and between events because of redistribution of snow by the wind.

Summary statistics on precipitation are usually produced on the basis of daily, monthly, and annual amounts falling at a given location or over a catchment area. The frequency at which a rainfall of a certain volume occurs within a certain period is also important to hydrologic analysis. The assessment of this frequency, or the recurrence interval of the rainfall from the sample of available data, is a statistical problem generally involving the assumption of a particular probability distribution to represent the characteristics of rainfalls. Such analyses must assume that this distribution is not changing over time, even though it has been shown that in some areas of the world climatic change may cause rainfall statistics to vary. It has long been speculated that rainfalls may exhibit cyclic patterns over long periods of time, and considerable effort has been expended in searching for such cycles. In some areas the annual seasonal cycle is of paramount importance, but demonstrations of longer periodicities have not proved of general applicability.

Patterns of rainfall intensity and duration are of great importance to the hydrologist in predicting catchment discharges and water availability and in dealing with floods, droughts, land drainage, and soil erosion. Rainfalls vary both within and between rainstorms, sometimes dramatically, depending on the type and scale of the storm and its velocity of movement. Within a storm, the average intensity tends to decrease with an increase in the storm area.

On a larger scale, seasonal variations in rainfall vary with climate. Humid temperate areas tend to have rainfalls that are fairly evenly distributed throughout the year; Mediterranean areas have a winter peak with low summer rainfalls; savanna areas have a double peak in rainfall; and equatorial areas again have a relatively even distribution of rainfall over the course of the year. Average annual rainfalls also vary considerably. The minimum recorded long-term average is 0.76 millimetre at Arica, Chile; the maximum 11,897.36 millimetres at Tutunendo, Colombia. The maximum recorded rainfall intensities are 38 millimetres in one minute (Barot, Guadeloupe, 1970); 1,870 millimetres in a single day (Cilaos, Réunion, 1952); and 26,461 millimetres in one year (Cherrapunji, India, 1861).


When precipitation reaches the surface in vegetated areas, a certain percentage of it is retained on or intercepted by the vegetation. Rainfall that is not intercepted is referred to as throughfall. Water that reaches the ground via the trunks and stems of the vegetation is called stemflow. The interception storage capacities of the vegetation vary with the type and structure of the vegetation and with meteorologic factors. Measurements have shown that up to eight millimetres of rainfall can be intercepted by some vegetation canopies. The intercepted water is evaporated back into the atmosphere at rates determined by the prevailing meteorologic conditions and the nature of the vegetation. In humid temperate areas evaporation of intercepted water can be an important component of the water balance. Forest areas have been shown to have greater interception losses than adjacent grassland areas. This is due to the greater aerodynamic roughness of the forest canopy, resulting in a much more efficient transfer of water vapour away from the surface.


When water from a rainstorm or a period of snowmelt reaches the ground, some or all of it will infiltrate the soil. The rate of infiltration depends on the intensity of the input, the initial moisture condition of the surface soil layer, and the hydraulic characteristics of the soil. Small-scale effects such as the presence of a surface seal of low permeability (due to the rearrangement of surface soil particles by rain splash) or the presence of large channels and cracks in the surface soil may be important in controlling infiltration rates. Water in excess of the infiltration capacity of the soil will flow overland as surface runoff once the minor undulations in the surface (the depression storage) have been filled. Such runoff occurs most frequently on bare soils and in areas subject to high rainfall intensities. In many environments rainfall intensities rarely exceed the infiltration capacities of vegetated soil surfaces. The occurrence of surface runoff is then more likely to be generated by rainfall on completely saturated soil.


Rates of evapotranspiration of water back to the atmosphere depend on the nature of the surface, the availability of water, and the “evaporative demand” of the atmosphere (i.e., the rate at which water vapour can be transported away from the surface under the prevailing meteorologic conditions). Estimation of evapotranspiration rates is important in determining expected rates of stream discharge and in controlling irrigation schemes. The concept of potential evapotranspiration—the possible rate of loss without any limits imposed by the supply of water—has been an important one in the development of hydrology. Most direct measurements of rates of potential evapotranspiration are made using standard evapotranspiration pans with an open water surface. Such measurements serve as a useful standard for comparative purposes, but measured rates may be very different from appropriate potential rates for the surrounding surfaces because of the different thermal and roughness characteristics of the vegetation. In fact, the measured pan rate may be affected by the nature of the surrounding surface due to the influence of evapotranspiration on the humidity of the lower atmosphere.

A distinction also must be drawn between potential rates of evapotranspiration and actual rates. Actual rates may be higher than pan rates for a well-watered, rough vegetation canopy. With a limited water supply available from moisture in the soil, actual rates will fall below potential rates, gradually declining as the moisture supply is depleted. Plants can have some effect on rates of evapotranspiration under dry conditions through physiological controls on their stomata—small openings in the leaf surfaces that are the primary point of transfer of water vapour to the atmosphere. The degree of control varies with plant species.

The only reliable way of measuring actual evapotranspiration is to use large containers (sometimes on the order of several metres across) called lysimeters, evaluate the different components of the water balance precisely, and calculate the evapotranspiration by subtraction. A similar technique is often employed at the catchment scale, although the measurement of the other components of the water balance is then necessarily less precise.

Soil moisture

The soil provides a major reservoir for water within a catchment. Soil moisture levels rise when there is sufficient rainfall to exceed losses to evapotranspiration and drainage to streams and groundwater. They are depleted during the summer when evapotranspiration rates are high. Levels of soil moisture are important for plant and crop growth, soil erosion, and slope stability. The moisture status of the soil is expressed in terms of a volumetric moisture content and the capillary potential of the water held in the soil pores. As the soil becomes wet, the water is held in larger pores, and the capillary potential increases.

Capillary potential may be measured by using a tensiometer consisting of a water-filled porous cup connected to a manometer or pressure transducer. Soil moisture content is often measured gravimetrically by drying a soil sample under controlled conditions, though there are now available moisture meters based on the scattering of neutrons or absorption of gamma rays from a radioactive source.

The rate at which water flows through soil is dependent on the gradient of hydraulic potential (the sum of capillary potential and elevation) and the physical properties of the soil expressed in terms of a parameter called hydraulic conductivity, which varies with soil moisture in a nonlinear way. Measured sample values of hydraulic conductivity have been shown to vary rapidly in space, making the use of measured point values for predictive purposes at larger scales subject to some uncertainty.

Water also moves in soil because of differences in temperature and chemical concentrations of solutes in soil water. The latter, which can be expressed as an osmotic potential, is particularly important for the movement of water into plant roots due to high solute concentrations within the root water.


Some rocks allow little or no water to flow through; these are known as impermeable rocks, or aquicludes. Others are permeable and allow considerable storage of water and act as major sources of water supply; these are known as aquifers. Aquifers overlain by an impermeable layer are called confined aquifers; aquifers overlain by an unsaturated, or vadose, zone of permeable materials are called unconfined aquifers. The boundary between the saturated and unsaturated zones is known as the water table. In some confined aquifers, hydraulic potentials may exceed those required to bring the water to the surface. These are artesian aquifers. A well drilled into such an aquifer will cause water to gush to the surface, sometimes with considerable force. Continued use of artesian water, however, will cause potentials to decline until eventually the water may have to be pumped to the surface.

The water found in groundwater bodies is replenished by drainage through the soil, which is often a slow process. This drainage is referred to as groundwater recharge. Rates of groundwater recharge are greatest when rainfall inputs to the soil exceed evapotranspiration losses. When the water table is deep underground, the water of the aquifer may be exceedingly old, possibly resulting from a past climatic regime. A good example is the water of the Nubian sandstone aquifer, which extends through several countries in an area that is now the Sahara desert. The water is being used extensively for water supply and irrigation purposes. Radioisotope dating techniques have shown that this water is many thousands of years old. The use of such water, which is not being recharged under the current climatic regime, is termed groundwater mining.

In many aquifers, groundwater levels have fallen drastically in recent times. Such depletion increases pumping costs, causes wells and rivers to dry up, and, where a coastal aquifer is in hydraulic contact with seawater, can cause the intrusion of saline water. Attempts have been made to augment recharge by the use of waste waters and the ponding of excess river flows. A scheme to pump winter river flows into the Chalk aquifer that underlies London has reversed the downward trend of the water table.

Water table levels in an aquifer are measured by using observation wells. Successive measurements of water levels over time may be plotted as a well hydrograph. The hydraulic characteristics of a particular aquifer around a well can be determined by the response of the water table to controlled pumping. Many aquifers exhibit two types of water storage: primary porosity consisting of the smaller pores and secondary porosity or fractures within the rock mass. The latter may make up only a small proportion of the total pore space but may dominate the flow characteristics of the aquifer. They are of particular importance to the movement of pollutants through the groundwater.

Runoff and stream discharge

Runoff is the downward movement of surface water under gravity in channels ranging from small rills to large rivers. Channel flows of this sort can be perennial, flowing all the time, or they can be ephemeral, flowing intermittently after periods of rainfall or snowmelt. Such surface waters provide the majority of the water utilized by humans. Some rivers, such as the Colorado River in the western United States, are used so intensively that often no water reaches the sea. Others flowing through hot, dry areas, as, for example, the Lower Nile, became smaller downstream as they lose water to evaporation and groundwater storage.

Stream discharge is normally expressed in units of volume per unit time (e.g., cubic metres per second), although this is sometimes converted to an equivalent depth over the upstream catchment area. There are a number of techniques for measuring stream discharge. Measurements of velocities using current meters or ultrasonic sounding can be multiplied by the cross-sectional area of flow. Dilution of a tracer can also be used to estimate the total discharge. Weirs of different types are frequently employed at discharge measurement sites. These are constructed so as to give a unique relationship between upstream water level and stream discharge. Water levels can then be measured continuously, usually with a float recorder, to construct a record of discharge over time—namely, a stream hydrograph. Analysis of the hydrographic response to catchment inputs can reveal much about the nature of the catchment and the hydrologic processes within it.

Stream discharge data are presented in terms of daily, monthly, and annual flow volumes, though for some purposes (e.g., flood routing) shorter time periods may be appropriate. The frequency characteristics of peak discharges and low flows are also of importance to water resource planning. These are analyzed using some assumed probability distribution in a way similar to rainfalls. A time recording of annual maximum flood is usually used in flood-frequency analysis. For design purposes the hydrologist may be asked to estimate the flood with a recurrence interval of 50 or 100 years or longer. There are few discharge records that are longer than 50 years, so such estimates are almost always based on inadequate data.

Knowledge of the discharge characteristics of catchments is essential to water supply planning and management, flood forecasting and routing, and floodplain regulation. Discharges vary over short lengths of time during storm periods, seasonally with the seasonal changes in evapotranspiration losses, and over longer periods of time as the rainfall regime changes from year to year. Discharge characteristics also vary with climate. In some places discharge represents only a minor component of the catchment water balance, the losses being dominated by evapotranspiration.

The discharge hydrograph that results from a rainstorm represents the integrated effects of the surface and subsurface flow processes in the catchment. Traditionally, hydrologists have considered the bulk of a storm hydrograph to consist of storm rainfall that has reached the stream primarily by surface routes. Recent work using naturally occurring isotope tracers such as deuterium has shown, however, that in many humid temperate areas the bulk of the storm hydrograph consists of pre-event water. This water has been stored within the catchment between storms and displaced by the rainfall during the storm. This suggests that subsurface flow processes may play a more important role in the storm response of catchments than has previously been thought possible.

Modeling catchment hydrology

The availability of high-speed computers has resulted in a widespread use of computer models in the analysis and prediction of hydrologic variables for research as well as for practical design and management purposes. These models vary greatly in type and complexity, from simple computer implementations of methods previously based on manual calculations to attempts to solve the nonlinear partial differential equations describing surface and subsurface flow processes that require much computation. All have their practical limitations.

The simpler models treat the catchment as a single “lumped” (or undifferentiated) unit. It is clearly not possible to describe hydrologic processes in detail in such a model, and most processes are represented as empirical functional relationships between inputs and outputs. Some lumped models do not refer to the internal hydrologic processes of the catchment at all but use systems analysis techniques to relate inputs to outputs. The parameters of such computer models are calibrated by fitting the model to simulate a known discharge record. It is consequently very difficult to interpret parameters derived in this manner in a physically meaningful way or to extend the use of the model to sites where there are no discharge records. Parameter values for ungauged sites can sometimes be estimated from empirical relationships between catchment characteristics and parameter values derived from fitting a model at a number of gauged sites. The uncertainties in such a procedure, however, are high.

The more-complex computer models attempt to analyze the internal processes of the hydrologic system in greater detail, taking into account the spatial nature of the catchment, its topography, soils, vegetation, and geology. These are “distributed” models, usually formulated in terms of flow equations for each hydrologic process considered to be important. Some processes such as channel flows and groundwater flows can be described in a reasonably satisfactory way. In the case of other processes, as, for example, flow through the soil and evapotranspiration, hydrologists cannot be so sure of their descriptions. Distributed models tend to have many parameters. In principle, many of these parameters can be measured in the field or can be estimated from the physical characteristics of the catchment. In practice, such models have proved difficult to apply and have not been shown to provide more accurate results than simpler models in spite of their theoretical rigour.

Most models for hydrologic forecasting in practical use today are deterministic; that is to say, given a sequence of inputs to the model, the outputs are uniquely determined. In a probabilistic description of catchment hydrology, the effects of uncertainty in the model inputs, parameters, or descriptive equations must be reflected in a degree of uncertainty in the outputs. Such a model is known as a stochastic model.

Water quality

Natural water is a dilute solution of elements dissolved from Earth’s crust or washed from the atmosphere. Its ionic concentration varies from less than 100 milligrams per litre in snow, rain, hail, and some mountain lakes and streams to as high as 400,000 milligrams per litre in the saline lakes of internal drainage systems or old groundwaters associated with marine sediments.

Water quality is influenced by natural factors and by human activities, both of which are the subject of much hydrologic study. The natural quality of water varies from place to place with climate and geology, with stream discharge, and with the season of the year. After precipitation reaches the ground, water percolates through organic material such as roots and leaf litter, dissolves minerals from the soil and rock through which it flows, and reacts with living things from microscopic organisms to humans. Water quality also is modified by temperature, soil bacteria, evaporation, and other environmental factors.

Pollution is the degradation of water quality by human activities. Pollution of surface and subsurface waters arises from many causes, but it is having increasingly serious effects on hydrologic systems. In some areas the precipitation inputs to the system are already highly polluted, primarily by acids resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels in power generation and automobiles.

Other serious causes of pollution have been the dumping of industrial wastes and the discharge of untreated sewage into watercourses. Salt spread on roads in winter has resulted in the contamination of subsurface drinking water supplies in certain areas, as, for example, in Long Island, New York. Excess water resulting from deforestation or irrigation return flows that leach salts from soils in semiarid areas are major sources of pollution in the western United States and Western Australia.

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