by Baxter E. Vieux. Published 2001 as vol. ... Published 2002 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Baffms Lane, Chichester, West Sussex. P019 1UD, UK; 388 + x pp.; ...
Book reviews
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degradation of riparian ecosystems, inundation of natural landmarks, and the need for relocation, are unwelcome. Some dams were linked to corruption, bureaucratic rivalry and power-hungry politicians. As stated in the book, "too many dams... resulted from political horse trading rather than from genuine need" and congressional authorization of new dams for the West was a part of the annual bargaining process. Dramatic alteration of rivers and riparian habitats caused adverse ecosystem changes, but critics question also the economic side: hidden subsidies, cost overruns. Reservoirs inundated large areas of reservation land. The relocated people were compensated but money did not resolve all the problems (e.g. those related to lifestyle, fishing, sacred plants, graves). Since the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, environmental impact assessment (E1A) has been required for all federally-funded projects, and, recently, several dams in the West have been targeted for removal. The book tells of the universal truth that the huge new source of water is the water being wasted (or used not efficiently enough). There is a conflict between different value uses in the arid state of Nevada: 80% of water is used in agriculture to produce a revenue of US$1 billion, while less than 20% of water used outside agriculture has generated over 340 times more revenue—over 99% of the state's income. Is it realistic to expect the scenario that farmers and ranchers cede water rights to the urban regions, causing significant reallocation of water? In summary, this book is an instructive, and pleasant reading on water, which nicely enriches the regular "diet" of hydrologists. It is a contribution to understanding of the interplay of water, people, and growth in the American West. Even if the book refers to one region within North America, it may interest a broad international readership. The advent of the age of water scarcity has been heralded, so water management in arid and semiarid regions is likely to become one of the most essential and critical global issues. Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz Research Centre of Agriculture and Forest Environment Polish Academy of Sciences Poznan, Poland
Distributed Hydrologie Modeling Using GIS by Baxter E. Vieux Published 2001 as vol. 38 in the Water Sciences and Technology Library by Kluwer Academic Publishers, PO Box 17, 3300 AZ Dordrecht, The Netherlands; 294 + xvi pp.; price €95/£59/US$89; ISBN 0-792-37002-3 This book is a concise introduction to modelling hydrological processes, based on the author's own rich experience in the subject. The primary focus are distributed, physics-based models, which the author strongly advocates, applied to estimating surface runoff at the river basin scale. However, most of the material presented refers to general principles, of use in a much wider context. The book explains how to model infiltration and related processes, estimate parameters of various infiltration models based on the Green-Ampt equation from soil properties or infiltration measurements (the former treated in more detail), derive different types of hydraulic roughness coefficients using land use/cover classification schemes and construct drainage networks from digital elevation models. Some technical background on the physical processes that govern water flow is also given, along with a description of general techniques, such as generating raster surfaces from irregularly spaced data points using inverse distance weighting, surface interpolation by kriging, and several spline methods. The issues and caveats one may encounter and must be aware of are emphasized throughout the text. These include the problems of interfacing diverse types and représenta-
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tions of GIS data; selecting an appropriate spatial resolution to balance model precision against computational efficiency (an information-theoretic statistic to guide the choice is devised); data quality and availability, including a detailed description of estimating precipitation from weather radar observations; and calibrating the models for specific purposes. The role of fractal scaling in choosing resolution and calibrating the model is also discussed. The book has a nice, modular structure. The reader may peruse the introduction and jump to a specific topic, if necessary. A glossary and a moderate-sized index are quite helpful. Unfortunately, the typesetting of some equations leaves much to be desired. The interdisciplinary character of distributed hydrological modelling has forced the author to choose between creating a large, detailed, "brick-type" book, or a lighter guide with details omitted. Here a nice golden rule was found. Subsequent chapters contain some technical background and provide a general overview of what has been done on particular topics, allowing the reader to pursue the matter further and find the details in appropriate papers if necessary. The general parts are coupled by extended examples in each chapter, where the methods presented are applied step by step, as well as by the more specific final chapters, containing case studies, a detailed description of a hydrological model r.water.fea (part of the GRASS GIS), developed by the author and his collaborators, and, in the appendix, the user's manual for the ArcView version of the model. The book is addressed to faculty members, senior and graduate students, civil, agricultural, water resources and environmental engineers, hydrologists, physical geographers, and hydrometeorologists engaged in hydrological modelling. Maciej Radziejewski Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, Poland
Dryland Rivers Hydrology and Geomorphology of Semi-arid Channels
edited by L. J. Bull & M. J. Kirkby Published 2002 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Baffms Lane, Chichester, West Sussex P019 1UD, UK; 388 + x pp.; price £95 (hardback); ISBN 0-471-49123-3 Water is scarce in the desert, but writings about it even more so. Whilst arid zone hydrology is considered to be one of the highest forms of art and science, people who ply their craft in the desert usually have to resort to in situ improvisations since there is preciously little to rely on. Therefore, it is good to see a publication which fills some of this void, and the editors and publisher are to be congratulated on the presentation of this timely volume. This book concerns itself with dryland areas which cover about half of the Earth's land surface. However, arid and hyper-arid environments are not covered here: the second part of the title—Hydrology and Geomorphology of Semi-arid Channels—describes the focus of the book very precisely. As the authors say, Dryland Rivers is the first text to focus on dryland channel networks and processes, and presents a historical framework for research, discusses examples of current studies, and evaluates contemporary modelling approaches. The book consists of 12 chapters written by 26 contributors from: the UK (11), Spain (7), Belgium (6), Australia and the USA (1 each). It has four parts: An Overview of Dryland Rivers (Chapters 1 and 2), Processes in Dryland Catchments (Chapters 3-7), Channel Network Expansion (Chapters 8-10) and Flooding in Ephemeral Streams (Chapters 11 and 12). Most of the chapters take the form of generalized overviews; however, a number of case studies are also presented. These relate mainly to Spain, with several examples from Australia, Israel, and the USA.
