Introduction to Techniques of Measurement and Analysis: Surface Processes

Abstract

Land-surface processes stand in a very special relation to the study of the global water budget. Quite apart from their role (which varies in importance with the time and space scale of study) within the overall water cycle, they have a major impact on Man’s activities. Apart from the obvious harm caused by extremes — unhappily little studied in the water-budget context —even the average pattern of availability of water in its solid, liquid and gaseous phases limits human settlement, agriculture and industry, leading thereby to the expenditure of energy and resources (as well as ingenuity) in endeavours to circumvent these natural constraints.