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 drainage basin 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.
The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth,planetary,and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet." The organisation has headquarters in Munich,Germany. Membership is open to individuals who are professionally engaged in or associated with these fields and related studies,including students,early career scientists and retired seniors.
The International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) is a non-profit,non-governmental scientific organization committed to serving the science of hydrology and the worldwide community of hydrologists. The IAHS was established in 1922,and presently claims a membership in excess of 9,000 with members in over 150 countries.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to hydrology:
Jasper A. Vrugt is a Dutch scientist/engineer/applied mathematician known for his work in the earth sciences:surface hydrology,soil physics,hydrogeophysics,hydrometeorology,and geophysics. Vrugt is an assistant professor at the University of California,Irvine and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Earth System Science. He also holds a part-time appointment as associate professor at the University of Amsterdam,Faculty of Science (CGE).
Socio-hydrology; socio and hydrology is an interdisciplinary field studying the dynamic interactions and feedbacks between water and people. Areas of research in socio-hydrology include the historical study of the interplay between hydrological and social processes,comparative analysis of the co-evolution and self-organization of human and water systems in different cultures,and process-based modelling of coupled human-water systems. The first approach to socio-hydrology was the term "hydro-sociology",which arises from a concern about the scale of impact of human activities on the hydrological cycle. Socio-hydrology is defined as the humans-water interaction and later as “the science of people and water”,which introduces bidirectional feedbacks between human–water systems,differentiating it from other related disciplines that deal with water. Furthermore,socio-hydrology has been presented as one of the most relevant challenges for the Anthropocene,in relationship with its aims at unraveling dynamic cross-scale interactions and feedbacks between natural and human processes that give rise to many water sustainability challenges. Socio‐hydrology is also predicted to be an important license for modellers.
Hydrologic Research Center (HRC),founded in 1993,is a public-benefit non-profit research,technology transfer,and science cooperation and education organization,dedicated to the development of effective and sustainable solutions to global water issues. HRC's purpose is to provide a conduit for academic and other up-to-date research to be made suitable for effective application to field operational problems that involve water management and flood disaster mitigation. The vision of HRC is to assist in limiting societal vulnerability and preserving resiliency in basic human needs,livelihoods,agriculture,water resources,healthy ecosystems,and natural resources. Around the world flash flooding and flooding are the most common natural disasters and the leading cause of natural disaster fatalities worldwide –40% of all natural disasters.
Murugesu Sivapalan is an Australian-American engineer and hydrologist of Sri Lankan Tamil origin and a world leader in the area of catchment hydrology. He is currently the Chester and Helen Siess Endowed Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering,and professor of Geography &Geographic Information Science,at the University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign. Sivapalan is widely recognized for his fundamental research on scale issues in hydrological modeling,his leadership of global initiatives aimed at hydrologic predictions in ungauged basins,and for his role in launching the new sub-field of socio-hydrology.
Professor Günter Blöschl is an Austrian hydrologist,engineer and academic.
Daniel Roy Parsons is (2022-) Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Loughborough University and holds the Personal Title of Professor in Geosciences. He was the founding Director of the Energy and Environment Institute (2017-2022) and a professor of process sedimentology at the University of Hull from 2011 to 2022. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Illinois (USA) and Can Tho University (Vietnam). He obtained his PhD at the University of Sheffield in 2004. Parsons is known for his work on flow processes and sediment transport in rivers,coasts and estuaries,and the deep sea. This includes work addressing flood hazard and risk,as well as internationally leading work detailing turbidity currents and associated hazards in the deep sea. Parsons also researches the leakage and transport of plastics in rivers,coasts and estuaries and as part of the Huxley debate at the 2018 British Science Festival he claimed that the most significant marker for the Anthropocene age may be the fossilisation of plastic debris such as formed in plastiglomerate. Parsons is currently a member of the Natural Environment Research Council Research Committee. Parsons has recently completed a major research programme funded via a European Research Council Consolidator Award exploring the evolution of stickiness and its impact of morphodynamic and sedimentary processes. He is presently President of Division for Geomorphology of the European Geosciences Union and a Commissioner on the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission,chairing the Research and Evidence Panel.
Hayley J. Fowler is a Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University.
Anne Jarvis Jefferson is an American hydrologist who specializes in watershed hydrology,urban hydrology,and hydroecology. As of 2023,she is the Patrick Chair in Watershed Science and Planning at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. Previously she was an associate professor at Kent State University in the Department of Geology,which became the Department of Earth Sciences.
Alik Ismail-Zadeh is a mathematical geophysicist known for his contribution to computational geodynamics and natural hazard studies,pioneering work on data assimilation in geodynamics as well as for outstanding service to the Earth and space science community. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.
Hannah Louise Cloke is a British hydrologist who is Professor of Hydrology at the University of Reading. She was awarded the European Geosciences Union Plinius Medal in 2018 and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 Birthday Honours.
Georgia "Gia" Destouni is a Professor of Hydrology at Stockholm University. She works on the Baltic Sea Region Programme as well as studying the impact of climate change on societies in Northern Europe. She is the chair of the Global Wetland Ecohydrology Network (GWEN) and was involved with the National Geosphere Laboratory.
Amir AghaKouchak is an Iranian American civil engineer,academic and researcher. He is a Professor of Civil Engineering,Environmental Engineering,and Earth System Science at University of California,Irvine.
Upmanu Lall is an Indian-American engineer and founding director of the Water Institute at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. Lall also has a faculty appointment as professor in the School of Complex Adaptive Systems within the College of Global Futures. Prior to joining ASU in January 2024,Lall was the Alan and Carol Silberstein Professor of Engineering at Columbia University. He served as founding director of the Columbia Water Center. Lall studies how to solve water scarcity and how to predict and mitigate floods. In 2014,he was awarded the Henry Darcy Medal by the European Geosciences Union. He was named an American Geophysical Union Fellow in 2017 and their Walter Langbein Lecturer in 2022. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018,and has received the Arid Lands Hydrology and the Ven Te Chow Awards from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In April 2021 he was named to the “Hot List of the world’s 1,000 top climate scientists”by Reuters.
Renzo Rosso is an Italian hydrologist recognized for his contributions to water resources and environmental engineering.
Richard M. Vogel is an American hydrologist and environmental engineer and professor emeritus in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Tufts University.
