It seems to me that this gap becomes larger and larger despite the fact of very intensive involvement of new concepts, methods, organisations, institutions and technologies. For example the most of new methods, concepts, approaches, initiatives and organisations dealing with flood and drought attenuation and river restoration or revitalization despite their good intention did not considerably improve flood and water management in critical situations. Their costs are very high and the success is questionable.
“How can hydrology be more efficient and effective?”
It has a lot to do with available resources and public policies.
Lets be realistic, not all hydrologists, watershed scientists, water managers, civil engineers, hydraulic engineers, geomorphologists, water statisticians, meteorologists and others involved with flood and drought designing and review are trained and experienced to same degree. Even with substantial stream and rainfall data over several to perhaps ten decades for some sites, we are hampered with data of sufficient record and in some instances as accuracy, such as for flood measurements, where extreme floods have to be estimated as monitoring site is damaged or lost. We are also hampered because the trend line of station records is often used, rather than recognizing the confidence limits of plus/minus 40% uncertainty. We may fail to adequately account that the 1% flood (100 year event) design installed in long term structures, has a 1% chance of exceedance each year, so when applying the trend line for a 50 year structure, we should expect at least a 50-50 chance of exceedance. If we wanted structures to accomodate flows woth only a 10 percent exceedance over 50 years, we would design for the 0.2% chance of exceedance, ot the 500 year flood. In critical situations, review of the envelop curve and probable maximum storm and event might help put the upper bound to extreme events, except that land use such as erbanization, impervious surfaces and hydrologic modifications as dams and channelization should also be considered. Dam failures can be significant additions to downstream flooding and damages, losses to life. And all this without even mentioning climate change.
With newer rechniques to refurbish old culverts and structures in place, perhaps overdesigning to accomodate long term maintenance is a consideration. The licensed and bonded civil engineer is often one responsible to consider all these elements, so one might ask are current levels of training and practice sufficient to address the desired results. If we cannot afford desired results, then we need to have educated responses such as lowering dams and ensure overflow protections in place to avoid failure, and emergency evacuation plans, restricting designs and retrifitting structures in floodzone, etc.
We are in constant need for more data, and especially when we talk about extremes. Societal costs relative to hydrological extremes are great in losses to life and property. To do better, we need to invest and educate more, insure adequate hydrology and associates input, and make more informed decisions.
Very good comment. But my question (more, it is dilemma) is not concentrated to extremes (flood and drought), but in role of hydrology in future water resources management. Do new approaches (especially trends in theoretical hydrology) can efficiently fulfill its crucial (planetary) goals?
The way I see it, the crucial goals of hydrology are inherently centered around prediction, especially how to mitigate negative impacts of predictions. Predictions require some sort of model - statistical, numerical, conceptual, etc - preferably based on physical laws/properties and calibrated ("trained") to reproduce historical data. However, due to the non-stationary nature of hydrology and the abundance of uncertainty in models of nature, especially under changing climatic conditions not represented in the historical data, that is not enough. These models need to be viewed as scientific instruments rather than "simulators/predictors of reality" and used to test hypotheses, the results of which need to include estimates of uncertainty of the prediction.
John Doherty (along with others) are/have done great work trying to address this issue. In my experience though, it is sometimes hard for practicing hydrologists to wrap their heads around the concept and/or implement it. Check out Doherty's 2019 Darcy Lecture and publications if you get a chance. https://www.groundwater.org/lecture/darcy/darcy-2019.html
IMO, the answer to your question is to incorporate this paradigm of building models as tools to test scientific hypotheses rather than as "simulators/predictors of reality."
In 2004, Ognjen Bonacci wrote a paper titled "On the role of hydrology in water resources management" (http://hydrologie.org/redbooks/a286/iahs_286_0088.pdf). For me, this paper was quite inspiring. Of course, I am looking forward to an update written by whomsoever.
Unsure about planetary goals. There are so many laws, regulations, politics, cultures, landowners, water users of history, cities in precarious locations relative to flooding, sea level rise, storm surge, insufficient water availability, treatment, land use planning, dam maintenance, watershed management, etc. Lack of consistency, and significant differences in climate, etc. As hydrologists, we individually face the specific issues we are exposed to, often with the tools, models, guides, background and intuition we have developed from experience. However, we are typically in the background as advisors or consultants, with little authority to really make changes of consequence. Perhaps our greatest potential may be through education from levels of school children, colleges, agencies, land managers, decision makers and technical designers. As with engineers, some degree of licensing or certification might be helpful, such as available from American Institute of Hydrology. Regardless of the potential for new or more applicable models, applying what we already know would be a big help, seeking hydrology expertise in design and decisions, even regulations and policy making, and perhaps some peer or outside hydrology review of complex projects. There is already much that is not considered, due in part to the lack of hydrologist availability or awareness that a hydrologist review or advice would be helpful.
The fact that water resource management is still taught and seen as being under the sole purview of civil engineering is a hindrance for better water resources management. Most engineering still views water as a resource to be controlled for human use, neglecting ecosystem roles of water flow and quality, as well as how ecosystem processes maintain flow and quality. There are ecologists who work on ecosystem-water linkages, but, except for wetland restoration , and occasionally river channel restoration, not much ecohydrological understanding is practically applied by hydrologists and water resource planners/managers. Hence my short answer would be to increase ecohydrological instruction for water resources management. Another point I would like to make is that hydrological education can begin as school projects measuring rainfall, evapotranspiration, percolation, turbidity, filtration and the like. Also th effects of land use on water flow and quality - till today there are grave misunderstandings in the water sector about the role of forest cover and water. The natural water flow regime in a place is tied to the original (pre human disturbance) vegetation landcover. if forests aee removed, yes ET decreases, but runof gets much flashier with decreased baseflow in the dry season. On the other hand, exotic fastgrowing plantations can increase ET and dry up streams. These are common sense to researchers, but for practitioners, often times they take a statement such as " deforestation increases ANNUAL water yield".
I think the following steps will help alleviate the gap between hydrological practice and theory.
1) We need to recognize that hydrology is application oriented. It came into being and exists solely for the sake of real world application. Hydrology is not a science; it is engineering.
2) Therefore, hydrology curriculum and training should follow the typical engineering education, where hydrologists would learn whatever is necessary to solve practical problems. This would include fluid mechanics to open channel flow, calculus to statistic, management to accounting, communication to public relations, turbulence to water chemistry, economics to accounting, and everything else that is necessary to get the job done. The idea of many specialists from many disciplines working together is neither practical nor efficient; it just sounds good when spoken of. So, the hydrologists have no recourse but to master all necessary tools to do the job.
3) Researchers whose research is not used in real world problem solving within a reasonable time (say 3 years) should not be granted further research money. Practical application - not just the promise but actual application - should be a pre-condition of any funding earmarked for hydrology.
4) Make suitable forum for exchanging the knowledge and experience of real world hydrology. This may follow the 'academic' journals in editorial and peer review protocol, but should be centered on hydrology as it is practiced in real world.
5) Make hydrology a branch of engineering (because efforts to establish it as a science over last seventy years have not worked). Make professional accreditation/licensing mandatory for all hydrologists.
6) Start undergraduate university programs in hydrology (it also received only lip service during last seventy years). Initially such programs will be taught by specialists from various disciplines but eventually (say within 15 years) all teachers should be real hydrologists (with undergrad and grad degrees in hydrology).
7) Encourage 'theoretical' hydrologists to get funding and publish in their own specialty areas - such as mathematics, statistics, fluid dynamics, numerical methods, ecology or differential equations as the case may be.
Maybe, you are right. But, how achieve these goals in real word? I think that it is not possible.
Maybe the best way is to avoiding many assumptions, which most of them are not valid in the nature. In other word trying to understand any case study as a unique instead on interpreting by the previously published models.
Measure. Get people to take measurements of the weather phenomena around us. For example, you can quantify an approximate index of drought by counting rainy days. We can also know the behavior of the IDF curves by measuring the mean storm duration (min). We must teach people to measure, in a citizen science framework. Regards
Article Physical Parameterization of IDF Curves Based on Short-Duration Storms
Article Simplified Desing of a Drought Index, Using a Mixed Probabil...
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