Hydrology - What is it?

To define hydrology, it is the broad term for a variety of scientific branches of study concerning water. Translated from the Greek, hydrology means "the study of water." Hydrology is an essential field of science since everything - from tiny organisms to individuals to societies to the whole of civilization - depends so much on water. Water covers 70% of the earth's surface - and presumably that number will only increase over time, given the rising rate at which the ice caps are melting due to global warming. And so it is the task of applied hydrology that help us understand and negotiate with that most powerful element.

Hydrologists study the water cycle or hydrologic cycle in its real world workings - such as wildland hydrology and wetland hydrology - to develop an understanding of water's behavior in site-specific instances. For that reason, hydrological contracting is marketable to private and government property owners who want the best and brightest to manage the water on their property, in effect preventing flood, drought, etc.