Waveland Press - S. Lawrence Dingman

For over thirty years, Lawrence Dingman’s well-written, comprehensive Physical Hydrology has set standards for balancing theoretical depth and breadth of applications. Rich in substance and written to meet the needs of future researchers and experts in the field, Dingman treats hydrology as a distinct geoscience that is continually expanding to deal with large-scale changes in land use and climate.

The third edition provides a solid conceptual basis of the subject and introduces the quantitative relations involved in answering scientific and management questions about water resources. The text is organized around three principal themes: the basic concepts underlying the science of hydrology; the exchange of water and energy between the atmosphere and the earth’s surface; and the land phase of the hydrologic cycle. Dingman supplies the basic physical principles necessary for developing a sound, instructive sense of the way in which water moves on and through the land; in addition, he describes the assumptions behind each analytical approach and identifies the limitations of each.

Outstanding features include:
• An examination of documented trends in global change of climatic and hydrologic quantities
• Statistical and measurement methods for the development and management of hydrologic simulation modeling
• Additional exercises that emphasize analyses using data sets obtained via the Internet
• Excel spreadsheets available for download here.

“Dingman’s book aligns nicely with the material I intend to cover.” — Robert Ettema, Colorado State University

“This is a great book and the new edition is a great improvement over the last. I especially liked the boxes throughout that give meaningful examples and calculations.” — Joshua Roundy, University of Kansas

“An excellent tome for environmentalists, engineers, earth scientists, and humanists. The breadth, depth, and readability of the text make the material accessible to students at a variety of levels. A gourmet menu of subject matter.” — John F. Hermance, Brown University

Part I: INTRODUCTION

1. Hydrology: Basic Concepts and Challenges
Definition and Scope of Hydrology / Approach and Scope of This Book / Physical Quantities and Laws / Dimensions and Units / Properties of Water / Hydrologic Systems and the Conservation Equations / The Watershed / The Regional Water Balance / Special Characteristics of Hydrologic Variables / Hydrologic Storage / Uncertainty in Hydrology / Application of Basic Concepts to Modeling Watershed Functioning / The Future of Hydrology

2. The Global Context: Climate, Hydrology, and the Critical Zone
Basic Aspects of Global Climate / The Global Hydrologic Cycle / Hydrology and the Critical Zone

Part II: SURFACE-ATMOSPHERE WATER AND ENERGY EXCHANGE

3. Principles and Processes
Pressure-Temperature-Density Relations / Water Vapor / The Evaporation Process / Turbulent Exchange of Momentum, Mass, and Energy

4. Precipitation
Meteorology / Measurement / Areal Estimation from Point Measurements / Precipitation Climatology

5. Snow and Snowmelt
Hydrologic Importance of Snow / Material Characteristics of Snow / Measurement of Snow and Snowmelt / Distribution of Snow / Snowmelt Processes / Snowmelt Runoff Generation / Snowmelt Modeling

6. Evapotranspiration
Evaporation and Heat-Exchange Processes / Classification of Evapotranspiration Processes / Free-Water and Lake Evaporation / Bare-Soil Evaporation / Transpiration / Interception and Interception Loss / Potential and Reference-Crop Evapotranspiration / Actual Evapotranspiration

Part III: WATER MOVEMENT ON THE LAND

7. Principles of Subsurface Flow
Material Properties of Porous Media / Water Storage / Basic Principles of Saturated Subsurface Flow / Basic Principles of Unsaturated Subsurface Flow

8. Infiltration and Water Movement in Soils
Water Conditions in Soils / The Infiltration Process / Measurement of Infiltration / Quantitative Modeling of Infiltration at a Point / Infiltration over Areas / Redistribution of Soil Water / Summary

9. Ground Water in the Hydrologic Cycle
Aquifers and Aquitards / Regional Ground-Water Flow / Ground-Water-Surface-Water Relations / Ground Water in the Regional Water Balance / Evaluation of Ground-Water Balance Components / Impacts of Ground-Water Development on Areal Hydrology

10. Runoff Generation and Streamflow
The Watershed and the Stream Network / General Characteristics of Stream Response / Identification of Runoff Sources / Event-Flow-Generation Processes / Channel Processes / Rainfall-Runoff Modeling

Appendix A: Measurement Precision, Significant Figures, and Unit and Equation Conversion
Appendix B: Water as a Substance
Appendix C: Statistical Concepts Useful in Hydrology
Appendix D: Estimation of Daily Clear-Sky Incident Solar Radiation
Appendix E: Stream-Gauging Methods for Short-Term Studies
Appendix F: Hydrologic Simulation Modeling
Appendix G: Development of Scientific Hydrology