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R. L. Nace

Publications and source records attributed to R. L. Nace.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

The international hydrological decade

Work toward establishing a program of international cooperative studies in scientific hydrology began about 4 years ago, and the IHD ( International Hydrological Decade ) will begin under international auspices in January 1965. This program will be highly important for hydrology and hydrologists, and it should contribute greatly to human welfare in the future. Fortuitously, the opening year coincides with International Cooperation Year of the United Nations Organization. American participation in the program will contribute to the purpose avowed by the President [Johnson, 1964] in a commencement address at Holy Cross early in June 1964: “to dedicate this year to finding new techniques for making Man's knowledge serve Man's welfare. Let this be a year of science.”

Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union

Hydrology comes of age: Impact of the International Hydrological Decade

The IHD (International Hydrological Decade), 1965 to 1974, was conceived as a concerted international effort to bring into focus the badly fragmented subdiscipline of hydrology, to evolve a global perspective on water, and to provide global information on water. Until the last decade or so, hydrology was a laggard science. The science was also fragmented among surface‐water hydrology, agricultural hydrology, groundwater hydrology, oceanology, hydrometeorology, and hydrogeochemistry. All these disciplines were bona fide members of the hydrological family, but there was little interchange, so there was no central focus for the science as a whole. ©1980. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union

Ground water in perspective

Owing to their enormous capacity, ground‐water reservoirs are at least equal in importance to the ground water itself. As regulators of water movement in the hydrological cycle, these reservoirs surpass all lakes combined, natural and manmade. While many aquifers are not well understood, data on many others are adequate for long‐range broad‐scale planning. An example is the basalt aquifer of the Snake River Plain in Idaho. However, the area has managerial problems which concern the time, the place and the feasibility of manipulations of water. All continents of the world contain great aquifers. For every huge aquifer, however, hundreds of smaller ones occur, and even these contain astonishing amounts of water. Aquifers in the Ohio River Basin of the United States are good examples. Management of total water resources is a difficult problem at many places. But many problems could be met and many water shortages alleviated or eliminated by use of aquifers, not merely as sources of water, but as reservoirs for management of water.

Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon

PIERRE PERRAULT: THE MAN AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO MODERN HYDROLOGY

ABSTRACT: Pierre Perrault, member of a bourgeois provincial family whose roots were in the Touraine region of France, grew up in Paris. One of six illustrious Brothers, all characterized by brilliance and diversity, he was educated as a lawyer but turned to finance and rose to a high position under King Louis XIV. Owing to political naivete and financial imprudence, he fell into disgrace and went bankrupt. He then became an amateur scientist and wrote a book on the origin of springs. This book broke almost wholly with the traditional authoritarianism of 2, 000 years'standing, and set hydrology on the modern path of observation and direct experiment, He developed the concept of the hydrological cycle, correctly accounting for the disposition of rainfall by evaporation, transpiration, ground‐water recharge and runoff. Some of his ideas about specific processes were erroneous, but where he was wrong his errors were logically based. Much of his contribution to the foundation of scientific hydrology has been overlooked or distorted by historians and hydrologists alike. Copyright © 1974, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved

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