Concise Hydrology

Hydrology is a branch of scientific and engineering discipline that deals with the occurrence, distribution, movement, and properties of the waters of the earth. A knowledge of hydrology is fundamental to water and environmental professionals (engineers, scientists and decision makers) in such tasks as the design and operation of water resources, wastewater treatment, irrigation, flood defence, navigation, pollution control, hydropower, ecosystem modelling, etc. This is an introductory book on hydrology and written for undergraduate students in civil and environmental engineering, environmental science and geography. The aim of this book is to provide a concise coverage of key contents in hydrology that is easy to access through the Internet.

The book covers the fundamental theories on hydrological cycle (water balance, atmospheric water, subsurface water, surface water), precipitation analysis, evaporation and evapotranspiration processes, infiltration, ground water movement, hydrograph analysis, rainfall runoff modelling (unit hydrograph), hydrological flow routing, measurements and data collection, hydrological statistics and hydrological design. The text has been written in a concise format that is integrated with the relevant graphics. There are many examples to further explain the theories introduced. The questions at the end of each chapter are accompanied by the corresponding answers and full solutions. A list of recommended reading resources is provided in the appendix for readers to further explore the interested hydrological topics.

Dawei Han
Reader in Civil and Environmental Engineering,

1. Introduction
   1. Hydrological Cycle
   2. Key Hydrological Processes
   3. Common Units
   4. Water Distribution in Space and Time
   5. Water Balance
   6. Catchment
   7. Practice
2. Precipitation
   1. Atmosphere Water
   2. Precipitation Types
   3. Rain drop size and velocity
   4. Precipitation data
   5. Double Mass Curve
   6. Areal Rainfall
3. Evaporation and Evapotranspiration
   1. Relevant Basic Terms
   2. Evaporation from Open Water Surface
   3. Evapotranspiration from Land
   4. Field measurements
4. Infiltration
   1. Relevant Basic Terms
   2. Infi ltration Process
   3. Estimation of Infi ltration Rate
   4. Infi ltration measurements
5. Groundwater
   1. Basic Terms
   2. Characteristics of Confi ned/Unconfi ned Groundwater
   3. The Basic Flow Equations
   4. Steady Flow
   5. Unsteady Flow
   6. Computer Software
6. Hydrograph
   1. Basic Terms
   2. Flow Event Separation
   3. Direct Runoff and Base Flow Separation
   4. Effective Rainfall (Net Rainfall)
   5. Direct Runoff Modelling (Unit Hydrograph)
7. Flow Routing
   1. Basic Equations
   2. River Flow Routing (The Muskingum Method)
   3. Reservoir Flow Routing
8. Hydrological Measurements
   1. Basic terms
   2. Land based measurements
   3. Air based measurements
   4. Space based measurements
   5. Transportable Weather Station
9. Hydrological Statistics
   1. Basic Terms
   2. Statistical Flood Estimation
   3. Statistical Rainfall Estimation
10. Hydrological Design
    1. Reservoir and dam
    2. Basic design procedures
11. Appendix: Further Reading Resources