Revision as of 09:08, 18 April 2016

History of Hydrology Wiki

Why do we need a History of Hydrology Wiki?

There is no readily available source of information about the history of hydrology and hydrologists. The book by Asit K Biswas on the History of Hydrology (North-Holland, 1971) provides a summary of developments up to 1900 and there is some overlap with the three remarkable books on Hydraulicians of Europe and the USA from 1800 – 2000 produced by Willi Hager at ETH and the Hunter Rouse and Simon Ince book on the History of Hydraulics (Iowa Institue of Hydraulic Research, 1957). There have also been some efforts to put some of the history of hydrology together, such as the AGU History of Geophysics Volume 3 of 1987 edited by Edward Landa and Simon Ince. But the material is dispersed and not necessarily readily available.

All hydrologists are welcome to contribute information about the development of the subject (and its overlaps with hydraulics, water resource engineering, geomorphology, ecohydrology, sociohydrology, hydrometeorology, water quality, etc). The site is intended to provide information on hydrologists who are no longer active but who have made a valuable contribution to the history of hydrology.

This can be done either by writing a new article or contributing to an existing article using the Wiki editing functions, once you have registered as a user and have a login for the site. Entries should be in English but we encourage contributions that reflect the development of hydrology in all countries of the world, particularly early history that did not make it into the Biswas book.

Note that the AGU Hydrology Section has, in a parallel initiative, started a "Virtual Hydrologists" site which has some overlap with the current site, and more complete bibliographies.

Areas of coverage

The site will start by concentrating on 3 component areas

Biographies of Hydrologists

The History of Institutions

Hydrological Textbooks

Creating a new article

To write an article on a new topic (so far not included in the wiki), type the title of the article in the search box in the sidebar and create a new entry when prompted. You must confirm your e-mail address before creating or editing pages for the first time. Please set and validate your e-mail address through your user preferences.

Photographs and images can be included, but must be uploaded by a registered user before inclusion in an article .

Templates for articles on in each area can be found here: Templates.

Links to other relevant wikis and web sites

• Experimental Hydrology – a source of information on experimental catchments and hydrological instrumentation
• Water Wiki - focussing on water resources and decision making
• Small hydrological research basins - focussing on experimental catchments mainly in Europe
• The Hydrogeologist Time Capsule - video interviews about the development of hydrogeology
• AGU Virtual Hydrologists site