Catchment Hydrology Technical Committee Purpose
The Catchment Hydrology Technical Committee is one of eleven technical committees within the American Geophysical Union’s Hydrology Section which supports hydrologists through the organization of special sessions, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and community building events at AGU meetings. We welcome new members at any career stage! Please contact the committee chair if you are interested in engaging with the technical committee.
What is Catchment Hydrology?
A catchment can be defined as “all of the upstream area, which flow contributes to a single point along a stream channel” (Wagener et al., 2008). Catchments form a natural landscape unit that integrate all aspects of the hydrologic cycle (precipitation, evapotranspiration, recharge, storage, streamflow) that can be used to understand, quantify, and manage freshwater within the Earth’s near surface (Ehert et al., 2014) .
The scientific discipline of catchment hydrology is inherently interdisciplinary and uses field-based methods, lab analyses, and modeling techniques to understand the role of water storage and fluxes on catchment biogeochemical and geomorphic functions. While experimental catchment hydrology is essential to process understanding, applied catchment hydrology is critical to the proper management of freshwater supplies and ecosystem health in the face of a changing climate.
The scientific discipline of catchment hydrology is inherently interdisciplinary and uses field-based methods, lab analyses, and modeling techniques to understand the role of water storage and fluxes on catchment biogeochemical and geomorphic functions. While experimental catchment hydrology is essential to process understanding, applied catchment hydrology is critical to the proper management of freshwater supplies and ecosystem health in the face of a changing climate.
References
Wagener, T., Sivapalan, M. and McGlynn, B. (2008). Catchment Classification and Services—Toward a New Paradigm for Catchment Hydrology Driven by Societal Needs. In Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences (eds M.G. Anderson and J.J. McDonnell).
Ehret, U., Gupta, H. V., Sivapalan, M., Weijs, S. V., Schymanski, S. J., Blöschl, G., Gelfan, A. N., Harman, C., Kleidon, A., Bogaard, T. A., Wang, D., Wagener, T., Scherer, U., Zehe, E., Bierkens, M. F. P., Di Baldassarre, G., Parajka, J., van Beek, L. P. H., van Griensven, A., Westhoff, M. C., and Winsemius, H. C.: Advancing catchment hydrology to deal with predictions under change, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 649–671.
Ehret, U., Gupta, H. V., Sivapalan, M., Weijs, S. V., Schymanski, S. J., Blöschl, G., Gelfan, A. N., Harman, C., Kleidon, A., Bogaard, T. A., Wang, D., Wagener, T., Scherer, U., Zehe, E., Bierkens, M. F. P., Di Baldassarre, G., Parajka, J., van Beek, L. P. H., van Griensven, A., Westhoff, M. C., and Winsemius, H. C.: Advancing catchment hydrology to deal with predictions under change, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 649–671.
