Water-Related Disciplines
Water-Related Disciplines
Professional people concerned with water quantity and quality represent a variety of disciplines. The term "hydrologist" generally applies to those whose principal interest is in water resources on land. However, specialists in many other disciplines work in water resources. Water-resources research, planning, and management demand a mixture of skills.
Many types of engineers address water-resource issues: agricultural, civil, environmental, and hydraulic engineers quantitatively survey water resources, and measure flows in streams and canals, over spillways, through channels and conduits, and in underground aquifers. They gather and analyze data on the size and frequency of stream flows and the frequency and extent of floods and they monitor the construct facilities to store, treat, transport, and distribute water.
Hydrologic scientists may specialize in surface-water hydrology (the study of streams, lakes, and estuaries), groundwater hydrology and hydrogeology (study of subsurface water), soil sciences (study of infiltration, soil moisture, seepage, and evaporation from the soil), hydrometeorology (study of weather as is affects precipitation and evapotranspiration), limnology (study of lakes and wetlands), snow hydrology and glaciology (study of glaciers and ice)m and water quality and geochemical hydrology (study of water chemistry).
Physicists, chemists, and microbiologists research many basic water-resource questions, particularly in relation to the management, treatment, and transport of pollutants. The need to express natural water processes using mathematical models provides opportunities for mathematicians and statisticians to work on hydrologic and related sociological problems.
Hydrogeologists study geologic formations and map groundwater aquifers. Geomorphologists may study geologic processes in fluvial and karst environments, while glaciologists study alpine basins to learn more about the mechanics of glaciers and the relations between ice thickness, velocity, slope, and surface water flow.
Life scientists specializing in ecology, botany, limnology, forestry, agronomy, and microbiology study relationships between water resources and living organisms. These scientists study the process of transpiration by which plants return a sizeable portion of precipitation to the atmosphere. Life scientists are also developing methods to describe vegetation quantitatively in an effort to record the total environment of river basin-systems.
Economists, political scientists, geographers, ecologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians are involved in the growing public interest in water as it relates to human recreation, the quality of our environment, and other social objectives. If water is abundant, humans may use it in a somewhat cavalier fashion, averting impending shortages by simply building another dam or digging another well. But as the resources become increasingly scarce, more effective administrative and political institutions for water planning, development and management must emerge.
We all make several choices each day about how much water to use, in what forms, and in what ways. Factors affecting these choices involve laws, government or private agencies, business arrangements, and cultural traditions. Our attitudes will determine the success or failure of conservation and development programs. Planning for efficient use of water in industry, agriculture, and municipalities requires informed appraisals and projections of population, income, and industrial and urban development.
Water laws and regulations are often inadequate, confusing, difficult to apply and sometimes even cause wasteful use of water. Because water crosses state lines, there is often friction and conflict among states, and between state and federal jurisdictions with regard to control of water resources, we frequently change water laws only in responses to particular severe problems, resulting in the hodge-podge of water-resources statutes. There is a great need to review and revise our current water-resources legislation.
A demand exists for administrators and managers trained in water-resources administration. These positions require an ability to formulate plans and supervise local, state, or federal operations while taking into account all physical, political, and socioeconomic constraints.