Hydrology in Practice

Hydrology in Practice

Third edition , Elizabeth M.Shaw Formerly of the Department of Civil Engineering Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine  

Preface to the Third Edition 

In the current critical concern for the well-being of the environment, hydrologists in practice are finding the need for information on many more related topics.

The course contents in universities and other training establishments are developing a wider appreciation of the scope of hydrology and requests for the inclusion of such allied subjects as climatic change, sediment transport and catchment morphometry have been indicated. Without changing the structure of the text, brief introductions to these subjects with accompanying references have been inserted where practicable.
The major revisions have resulted from the technological advances in instrumentation and the philosophical changes in data processing. The original aims in handling hydrological measurements were to automate quality control and analysis with complex statistical programs on large-capacity mainframe computers. With desktop personal microcomputers, linked to field instruments and mainframe, the skilled meteorologist or hydrologist can make experienced subjective judgement on the data from elaborate displays of back-up related information.

Thus there have been minor amendments to the recording instruments of the Precipitation and River Flow chapters and major rewriting of the Data Processing chapter. New legislation has been outlined in the chapter entitled Water Quality. More recent illustrative examples are included in Part II, Hydrological Analysis, and earlier omissions in calculating areal evapotranspiration and in the development of a topography-based catchment model have been rectified. Modifications to the chapters on Engineering Applications are primarily concerned with introducing the available microcomputer packages related to the different problems but the opportunity has been taken to update the Flood Studies Report equations resulting from the later researches published in the Flood Studies Supplementary Reports. The reorganization of the UK water industry has caused difficulties in updating statistics in the chapter on Water Resources since continuity in publications was broken when the privatized water PLCs were separated from the National River Authority regions. The Bibliography and Indexes have been revised to accommodate the new texts, authors and extra topics. 

                                                                Elizabeth M.Shaw Hornby, Lancashire (December 1992) 

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Hydrology in Practice