Physical Hydrology (2nd Edition) [Hardcover]

S. Lawrence Dingman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0130996955 | ISBN-13: 978-0130996954 | Edition: 2

This book combines a qualitative, conceptual understanding of hydrologic processes, an introduction to the quantitative representation of those processes and an understanding of approaches to hydrological measurements and the uncertainties involved in those measurements. Numerous worked examples and exercises are included throughout to help assimilate concepts, consider implications of relations developed in the book, and apply concepts to local conditions. This book provides an introduction to hydrological science and its concepts including Climate, the Hydrologic Cycle, Soils and Vegetation, Precipitation, Snow and Snowmelt, Water in Soils: Infiltration and Redistribution, Evapotranspiration, Ground Water in the Hydrological Cycle, Stream Response to Water-Input Events, Hydrology and Water-Resource Management. Suitable as a reference work for professionals already working in the field. It can also serve as a comprehensive, readily understood introduction to hydrology for professionals in related fields.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This comprehensive and balanced treatment of the modern conceptual and methodologic approaches to hydrologic processes, measurements, and questions is ideal. Throughout the text, Professor Dingman emphasizes sound quantitative representations of the various hydrologic processes, and stresses the conceptual and practical aspects of a wide range of approaches to field measurement to these processes. Numerous worked examples and exercises are included throughout to help students assimilate concepts, consider implications of relations developed in the text, and apply concepts to local conditions. Whenever possible, he uses illustrations to help students understand processes, concepts, and definitions. Physical Hydrology's organization and coverage make it suitable as a reference work for scientists already working in the field. It can also serve as a comprehensive, readily understood introduction to hydrology for scientists in related fields. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The goal of the first edition of Physical Hydrology was to provide a comprehensive text for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students that treats hydrology as a distinct geoscience. It attempted to develop an understanding of the conceptual basis of hydrology and an introduction to the quantitative relations that implement that understanding in answering scientific and water-resources-management questions. The text seemed to fulfill a need, and I have been pleased with its reception by my colleagues and students.

My primary goals in revising Physical Hydrology have been to incorporate significant advances in the rapidly developing field of hydrologic science, to provide a more explicit connection of that science to hydrologic modeling, and to make more complete and useful the treatment of the relation between scientific hydrology and water-resources management. The major changes that have resulted are the following:

* Chapter 2 (Basic Hydrologic Concepts) now concludes with an introduction to hydrologic modeling, including discussions of model use, modeling terminology, and the process of model development. It also introduces the BROOK90 model, a physically based, lumped-parameter model that can be readily accessed on the World-Wide Web for student use. Discussions of the ways in which BROOK90 incorporates the physical relations discussed in the text are included as boxes in many of the subsequent chapters.
* Chapter 3 (Global Climate, Hydrologic Cycle, Soils, and Vegetation) now includes a tabulation of documented trends in global change of climatic and hydrologic quantities.
* In Chapter 4 (Precipitation), I have added a more extensive discussion of precipitation recycling and a new section on methods for handling missing data—an almost universal problem in hydrologic analysis. Also, the discussion of methods for estimating areal precipitation has been streamlined somewhat (one of the few places in which I was able to cut!).
* In Chapter 5 (Snow and Snowmelt), I have updated the discussion of ways of estimating energy-balance components and added a discussion of hybrid snowmelt models that combine energy-balance and temperature-index approaches.
* Chapter 6 (Water in Soils) now introduces the concepts of soil-moisture diffusivity and sorptivity, adds a discussion of equilibrium soil-moisture profiles, and expands the discussion of moisture redistribution.
* Chapter 7 (Evapotranspiration) now contains a brief discussion of soil evaporation as well as updates of the treatments of lake evaporation and energy-budget estimation.
* In Chapter 8 (Ground Water), the discussion of ground—water-surface-water relations has been expanded to include hyporheic flow and the Dupuit approximation for unconfined aquifers draining to streams.
* Chapter 9 (Stream Response to Water Input) has been reorganized so that the discussion of the mechanisms of stream response to water-input events now precedes the sections on rainfall-runoff modeling. The treatments of both mechanisms and modeling have been substantially revised and updated, and much of the detailed discussion of open-channel flow has been moved to Appendix B.
* Chapter 10 (Hydrology and Water Resources) has been entirely rewritten and expanded. It now includes a more complete and modern treatment of water-resource management goals and processes; a more detailed discussion of water supply and demand, including the concept of "safe yield" in various ground-water and surface-water settings and an expanded discussion of the estimation and application of flow-duration curves; a more complete discussion of water-quality issues; an expanded section on floods, including flood-frequency analysis; a completely new section on drought and low-flow analysis; and a concluding section on current and projected United States and global water use.
* Appendix A (Hydrologic Quantities) has been reorganized and largely rewritten to provide a more logical presentation of dimensions, units, and significant figures.
* Appendix B (Water as a Substance) now contains the detailed treatment of open-channel flow that was formerly in Chapter 9.
* Appendix C (Statistics) now includes discussions of approaches to fitting probability distributions to data and estimating parameters of distributions, which incorporate the application of L-moments, and a section on statistical criteria for calibrating and validating models.
* In Appendix D (Water and Energy in the Atmosphere), the treatment of turbulent transfer has been substantially revised.
* In Appendix F (Stream Gaging), the section on slope-area estimation of discharge has been completely revised.
* Appendix G is new. It contains links to hydrologic information on the World-Wide Web and is found on the CD accompanying the text.

In keeping with my goal of treating hydrology as a science and of providing an entree to the literature of the field, this edition continues the practice of supporting its discussion with extensive reference citations, in the style of a journal article rather than that of most textbooks. In the revision, over 200 reference citations have been added, and they now total over 800.

In carrying out the primary goals of the revision, I also saw opportunities to improve several other aspects of the text:

* Cross referencing is facilitated by use of a decimal numbering system for headings.
* Many of the exercises have been revised so that they provide more opportunity for student exploration of topics rather than simple "plug-and-chug" work.
* The spreadsheets on the CD that accompanies the book are now in EXCEL, and their formats have been improved and regularized. More modern units are used (kPa instead of mb; J and W instead of cal).
* The notation, especially for statistical quantities, is generally more conventional (and, I hope, less cumbersome).
* The "." symbol for multiplication is used throughout; this allows the use of multi-letter symbols without ambiguity.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 600 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 2 edition (January 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130996955
• ISBN-13: 978-0130996954
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #506,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great book for understanding hydrology, September 28, 2002

By 

Cody Kirkpatrick (Boulder, Colorado, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Physical Hydrology (2nd Edition) (Hardcover)

Anyone that thinks hydrology is just "water flow" is wrong! This book introduces the reader to many different concepts and explains them from *both* a mathematical and physical perspective. Hydrology is not just water...it is soil, snow, evaporation, etc...you get the idea.

In the first edition of his book (I have the old one), Dingman gives you all the tips and tricks that real-world hydrologists use and *explains* them. Keep in mind, however--this topic is very math intensive and if you are weak on algebra, hydrology--and this book in particular--could be difficult to follow. Some equations have more than a dozen variables...watch out!

I found the questions at the end of each chapter to be reasonably good, but I would like more thought questions. Sure, once you get the hang of it, anyone can crunch numbers to determine rainfall or snowmelt or whatever. But if you want to understand how/why things happen, you'll have to read the chapters--there is no way to gauge that aspect of learning.

As a meteorologist, I sometimes find myself referring to *this* book instead of my other textbooks--it is laid out well and I can quickly find what I need, when I need it. All in all, this is a very good book that I'll refer to again and again.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Physical Hydrology, April 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Physical Hydrology (Hardcover)

I found the book extremely useful, not only as a text book, but as a reference. This book gives a good history of hydrology, what physical hydrology is, and the technical content ranges from basic to quite advanced. A good range of expertise levels, so it can be used by people at different stages of their career. Some very practical problems and solutions are highlighted in each chapter, in the form of boxes, which make them stand out. There are a number of appendices, which give details of derivations, tables of constants, and other useful facts. Overall, this is one of those books I'll keep on my shelf and reach for, for basic equations to specific methods of solution.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hard to use, December 17, 2007

By 

ovis (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Physical Hydrology (2nd Edition) (Hardcover)

I'll echo others when I say first that this books has a lot of great information. However, it's difficult to actually learn from. It's very equation-based, which is good, but the equations are often simply presented without any discussion. The ambiguity of units is frustrating, and it's difficult to tell whether an equation has a typo or not. I really think it could be better organised. For my course, I ended up getting other textbooks on hydrology from the library and generally avoiding "Physical Hydrology."