Synopses & Reviews
This volume contains an overview of conventional and nonorthodox methods of representing and analyzing aspects of uncertainty in hydrology and water resources. Topics covered include: fractals, deterministic chaos, risk and reliability related criteria, fuzzy sets, pattern recognition, random fields, time series, stochastic modeling, outliers detection, nonparametric methods, information measures, and neural networks. Many new topics are discussed that make this book particularly valuable, and they include multifractals (applied to rain), a Bayesian relative information measure as a tool for analyzing the outputs of general circulation models, and a stochastic weather generator using atmospheric circulation patterns as a means to evaluate climate change.
Review
"Atmospheric science students who are not chemists or who do not have an extensive background in chemistry have long needed a primer on the physical chemical aspects of atmospheric (and other environmental) chemical processes. The book under review here mainly succeeds in fulfilling that need." James P. Friend, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Synopsis
Uncertainty is the lack of precision which may range from a lack of knowledge and data or the chaotic behaviour of the system, or simply to doubts in modelling processes. One of the greatest problems in hydrology research is how to quantify uncertainty, which is inherent in every hydrological process. The book is international in its scope, and contains a wealth of illuminating and stimulating material. It will be welcomed by researchers and graduate students of hydrology and water resources.
Synopsis
This is an overview of uncertainty techniques, such as the use of fractals and climate change in hydrology.
Table of Contents
List of authors; Preface; Part I. Introduction: 1. Hydrological uncertainty in perspective; Part II. Facets of Uncertainty: 2. Bayesian relative information measure - a tool for analysing the outputs of general circulation models; 3. A stochastic weather generator using atmospheric circulation patterns and its use to evaluate climate change effects; 4. Hydrological uncertainty - floods of Lake Eyre; 5. Some aspects of hydrological design under non-stationarity; 6. New plotting position rule for flood records considering historical data and palaeologic information; Part III. Novel Approaches to Uncertainty: Fractals, Fuzzy Sets and Pattern Recognition, Non-Parametric Methods: 7. Dispersion in stratified soils with fractal permeability distribution; 8. Multifractals and rain; 9. Is rain fractal?; 10. Multifractal structure of rainfall occurrence in West Africa; 11. Analysis of high-resolution rainfall data; 12. Application of fuzzy theory to snowmelt runoff; 13. On the value of fuzzy concepts in hydrology and water resources management; 14. Application of neural network in groundwater remediation under conditions of uncertainty; 15. Application of pattern recognition to rainfall-runoff analysis; 16. Nonparametric estimation of multivariate density and nonparametric regression; 17. Nonparametric approach to design flood estimation with pre-gauging data and information; Part IV. Random Fields: 18. Analysis of regional drought characteristics with empirical orthogonal functions; 19. Worth of radar data in real-time prediction of mean areal rainfall by nonadvective physically-based models; 20. Uncertainty analysis in radar-rainfall estimation; 21. Design of groundwater monitoring networks for landfills; 22. Spatial variability of evaporation from the land surface - random initial conditions; 23. Detecting outliers in flood data with geostatistical methods; Part V. Time Series and Stochastic Processes: 24. Prediction uncertainty in seasonal partial duration series; 25. A daily streamflow model based on a jump-diffusion process; 26. The influence of time discretization on inferred stochastic properties of point rainfall; 27. The distribution of the 1-day total precipitation amount; 28. Analysis of outliers in Norwegian flood data; 29. Stochastic modelling of the operation of hydrants in an irrigation network; 30. Order and disorder in hydroclimatological processes; 31. Towards the physical structure of river flow stochastic process; Part VI. Risk, Reliability and Related Criteria: 32. Stochastic approach to non-point pollution of surface waters; 33. Statistically safe sets methodology for optimal management of reservoirs in risk situations; 34. Risk assessment in control of reservoir systems; 35. Reliability-related criteria in water supply system studies; 36. Reliability analysis of reservoir operation; 37. Composite risk model of Ogee type spillway.