This, of course, is a schematic view of the hydrologic cycle (from Dunne and Leopold, 1978). It's a useful diagram because it shows the interaction among various hydrologic processes, and thus, it provides a conceptual framework for where we're going in this course.
Another view, espoused by many people in the field, is that hydrologic processes can be reduced to a set of equations, the simplest of which might be the continuity equation:
where i is the rate of input (e.g. of precipitation), q is the rate of output (e.g. of runoff) and dS/dt is the rate of change in storage (e.g. of a lake). I present both the schematic view of the hydrologic cycle (Fig. 1) and the continuity equation (1) to remind you that both are necessary.
S.L. Dingman, 1994, Physical Hydrology, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 575 pp.
Another reference that' I'll put on reserve in the Geology library is:
Dunne, T. and Leopold, L.B., 1978, Water in Environmental Planning, W.H. Freeman, New York, 818 pp.
A 2-hour lab session will be held every Tuesday.Attendance is mandatory and please be on time. We may take a field trip depending on people's interests and schedules, but the majority of the labs will be techniques oriented. Hydrologists use a variety of techniques that require skills in statistics, mathematics, remote sensing, cartography, computers, and in my case, rafting and surveying. We won't go into great depth in developing skills in all of these areas, but my goal in the lab portion of this course is to give you a basic understanding of these skills and show you how to apply them to specific hydrologic problems.
The exams will cover material from the lectures and your textbook. Test questions will be short answer and essay. No make-up exams will be given. If you miss a midterm exam and have a legitimate excuse, I will give you a score equal to your grade on the other midterm. If you canÕt explain your absence, youÕll get a score of zero. As some of you may know, my upper division courses are relatively rigorous. This means that I set high standards and you will have to work relatively hard to earn an 'A'. However, if you put in the time and show an interest in learning the material, I guarantee that you will come away with a thorough knowledge of hydrology.
|8/28||Introduction, general principles||Chapt. 1, 2|
|9/4||general climatology, global water resources||Chapt. 3|
|9/11||precipitation I: sources and measurement||Chapt.4|
|9/18||precipitation II: spatial & temporal variability||Chapt.4|
|9/25||snow and snowmelt||Chapt. 5|
|10/2||water in soils: infiltration and redistribution||Chapt. 6|
|10/9||evapotranspiration I: physical processes||Chapt. 7|
|10/16||evapotranspiration II: approaches for estimating||Chapt. 7|
|10/23||groundwater I: Darcy's law; local vs. regional flow||Chapt. 8|
|10/30||groundwater II: effects on surface runoff and water balance||Chapt. 8|
|11/6||catch-up and review|
|11/13||streams I: flow in channels; flood routing||Chapt. 9|
|11/20||streams II: networks; response hydrographs||Chapt. 9|
|11/27||streams III: floods and droughts; frequency analysis||Chapt. 9|
|12/4||watershed and regional hydrology||Chapt. 9|
|12/11||catch-up and review|
* we may not have lab every week, e.g. on Aug. 29 (during 1st week of semester), on days before midterms, on Nov. 21 before Thanksgiving break, and on Dec. 12 before the last day of classes.