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Hydrologist
Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydrologist. Hydrologists are scientists studying earth or environmental science, civil or environmental engineering, and physical geography. Using various analytical methods and scientific techniques, they collect and analyze data to help solve water related problems such as environmental preservation, natural disasters, and water management. Hydrology subdivides into surface water hydrology, groundwater hydrology (hydrogeology), and marine hydrology. Domains of hydrology include hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, hydrogeology, drainage-basin management, and water quality, where water plays the central role. Oceanography and meteorology are not included because water is only one of many important aspects within those fields. Hydr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrometeorology
Hydrometeorology is a branch of meteorology and hydrology that studies the transfer of water and energy between the land surface and the lower atmosphere. Hydrologists often use data provided by meteorologists. As an example, a meteorologist might forecast of rain in a specific area, and a hydrologist might then forecast what the specific impact of that rain would be on the local terrain. UNESCO has several programs and activities in place that deal with the study of natural hazards of hydrometeorological origin and the mitigation of their effects. Among these hazards are the results of natural processes and atmospheric, hydrological, or oceanographic phenomena such as floods, tropical cyclones, drought, and desertification. Many countries have established an operational hydrometeorological capability to assist with forecasting, warning, and informing the public of these developing hazards. Hydrometeorological forecasting One of the more significant aspects of hydrometeorology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth Science
Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres, namely biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere. Earth science can be considered to be a branch of planetary science, but with a much older history. Earth science encompasses four main branches of study, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere, each of which is further broken down into more specialized fields. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences. It is also the study of Earth and its neighbors in space. Some Earth scientists use their knowledge of the planet to locate and develop energy and mineral resources. Others study the impact of human activity on Earth's environment, and design methods to protect the planet. Some use their knowledge about Earth processes suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrometeorology
Hydrometeorology is a branch of meteorology and hydrology that studies the transfer of water and energy between the land surface and the lower atmosphere. Hydrologists often use data provided by meteorologists. As an example, a meteorologist might forecast of rain in a specific area, and a hydrologist might then forecast what the specific impact of that rain would be on the local terrain. UNESCO has several programs and activities in place that deal with the study of natural hazards of hydrometeorological origin and the mitigation of their effects. Among these hazards are the results of natural processes and atmospheric, hydrological, or oceanographic phenomena such as floods, tropical cyclones, drought, and desertification. Many countries have established an operational hydrometeorological capability to assist with forecasting, warning, and informing the public of these developing hazards. Hydrometeorological forecasting One of the more significant aspects of hydrometeorology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rain Over Beinn Eich, Luss Hills, Scotland
Rain is water drop (liquid), droplets that have condensation, condensed from Water vapor#In Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric water vapor and then Precipitation, fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water for hydroelectricity, hydroelectric power plants, crop irrigation, and suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems. The major cause of rain production is moisture moving along three-dimensional zones of temperature and moisture contrasts known as weather fronts. If enough moisture and upward motion is present, precipitation falls from convection, convective clouds (those with strong upward vertical motion) such as cumulonimbus (thunder clouds) which can organize into narrow rainbands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation which forces moist air to condense and fall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meteorology
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not begin until the 18th century. The 19th century saw modest progress in the field after weather observation networks were formed across broad regions. Prior attempts at prediction of weather depended on historical data. It was not until after the elucidation of the laws of physics, and more particularly in the latter half of the 20th century the development of the computer (allowing for the automated solution of a great many modelling equations) that significant breakthroughs in weather forecasting were achieved. An important branch of weather forecasting is marine weather forecasting as it relates to maritime and coastal safety, in which weather effects also include atmospheric interactions with large bodies of water. Meteorological pheno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drainage Basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the '' drainage divide'', made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills. A basin may consist of smaller basins that merge at river confluences, forming a hierarchical pattern. Other terms for a drainage basin are catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water basin, and impluvium. In North America, they are commonly called a watershed, though in other English-speaking places, "watershed" is used only in its original sense, that of a drainage divide. In a closed drainage basin, or endorheic basin, the water converges to a single point inside the basin, known as a sink, which may be a permanent lake, a dry lake, or a point where surface water is lost underground. Drainage basins are similar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surface-water Hydrology
Surface-water hydrology is the sub-field of hydrology concerned with above-earth water, in contrast to groundwater hydrology that deals with water below the surface of the Earth. Its applications include rainfall and runoff, the routes that surface water takes (for example through rivers or reservoirs), and the occurrence of floods and droughts. Surface-water hydrology is used to predict the effects of water constructions such as dams and canals. It considers the layout of the watershed, geology, soils, vegetation, nutrients, energy and wildlife. Modelled aspects include precipitation, the interception of rain water by vegetation or artificial structures, evaporation, the runoff function and the soil-surface system itself. When surface water seeps into the ground above bedrock, it is categorized as groundwater, and the rate at which this occurs determines baseflow needs for instream flow, as well as subsurface water levels in wells. While groundwater is not part of surface-water h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isotope Hydrology
Isotope hydrology is a field of geochemistry and hydrology that uses naturally occurring stable and radioactive isotopic techniques to evaluate the age and origins of surface and groundwater and the processes within the atmospheric hydrologic cycle. Isotope hydrology applications are highly diverse, and used for informing water-use policy, mapping aquifers, conserving water supplies, assessing sources of water pollution, and increasingly are used in eco-hydrology to study human impacts on all dimensions of the hydrological cycle and ecosystem services. Details Water molecules carry unique isotopic "fingerprints", based in part on differing ratios of the oxygen and hydrogen isotopes that constitute the water molecule. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have a different number of neutrons in their nuclei. Air, freshwater and seawater contain mostly oxygen-16 ( 16O). Oxygen-18 (18O) occurs in approximately one oxygen atom in every five hundred and has a slightly higher mass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydroinformatics
Hydroinformatics is a branch of informatics which concentrates on the application of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in addressing the increasingly serious problems of the equitable and efficient use of water for many different purposes. Growing out of the earlier discipline of computational hydraulics, the numerical simulation of water flows and related processes remains a mainstay of hydroinformatics, which encourages a focus not only on the technology but on its application in a social context. On the technical side, in addition to computational hydraulics, hydroinformatics has a strong interest in the use of techniques originating in the so-called artificial intelligence community, such as artificial neural networks or recently support vector machines and genetic programming. These might be used with large collections of observed data for the purpose of data mining for knowledge discovery, or with data generated from an existing, physically based model in or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weathering
Weathering is the deterioration of rocks, soils and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with water, atmospheric gases, and biological organisms. Weathering occurs ''in situ'' (on site, with little or no movement), and so is distinct from erosion, which involves the transport of rocks and minerals by agents such as water, ice, snow, wind, waves and gravity. Weathering processes are divided into ''physical'' and ''chemical weathering''. Physical weathering involves the breakdown of rocks and soils through the mechanical effects of heat, water, ice, or other agents. Chemical weathering involves the chemical reaction of water, atmospheric gases, and biologically produced chemicals with rocks and soils. Water is the principal agent behind both physical and chemical weathering, though atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide and the activities of biological organisms are also important. Chemical weathering by biological action is also known as biological wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogeochemistry
Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the entire Solar System, and has made important contributions to the understanding of a number of processes including mantle convection, the formation of planets and the origins of granite and basalt. It is an integrated field of chemistry and geology. History The term ''geochemistry'' was first used by the Swiss-German chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1838: "a comparative geochemistry ought to be launched, before geognosy can become geology, and before the mystery of the genesis of our planets and their inorganic matter may be revealed." However, for the rest of the century the more common term was "chemical geology", and there was little contact between geologists and chemists. Geochemistry emerged as a separate discipline after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogeology
Hydrogeology (''hydro-'' meaning water, and ''-geology'' meaning the study of the Earth) is the area of geology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rocks of the Earth's crust (commonly in aquifers). The terms groundwater hydrology, geohydrology, and hydrogeology are often used interchangeably. Hydrogeology is the study of the laws governing the movement of subterranean water, the mechanical, chemical, and thermal interaction of this water with the porous solid, and the transport of energy, chemical constituents, and particulate matter by flow (Domenico and Schwartz, 1998). Groundwater engineering, another name for hydrogeology, is a branch of engineering which is concerned with groundwater movement and design of wells, pumps, and drains. The main concerns in groundwater engineering include groundwater contamination, conservation of supplies, and water quality.Walton, William C. (November 1990). ''Principles of Groundwater Engin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
