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Pages 1-14

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From page 1...
... Global population growth has led to increased demand for water to support agricultural, industrial, and drinking water needs, with water withdrawals that have become unsustainable in many parts of the world. Climate variability and change, land use change, and demographic change place varying stress on the planet's water resources.
From page 2...
... Over the past 20 years, new scientific understanding has been enabled by unprecedented measurements and observations of hydrologic processes, made possible through technological and scientific advances in chemical analytical instrumentation, new sensor development, remote sensing and geophysical techniques, increased computation capabilities, and improved hydrologic modeling. Today, hydrologic science is a distinct and critical component of geosciences, linking the atmosphere, land, and oceans and contributing to understanding life on Earth.
From page 3...
... The committee identified three major areas that define the key scientific challenges for the hydrologic sciences in the coming decade: The Water Cycle: An Agent of Change, Water and Life, and Clean Water for People and Ecosystems. For each major area, the committee enumerates some of the most challenging concepts and identifies research opportunities for
From page 4...
... As such, the field is tasked with integrating and collaborating with related sciences and embracing work in other disciplines and subdisciplines. The report covers physical-hydrological sciences, including physical hydrology, geomorphology, paleohydrology, and climate science; biological-hydrological sciences, including ecohydrology, aquatic ecology, biogeochemistry, soil science, and limnology; and chemical-hydrological sciences, including chemical hydrology, and aquatic geochemistry.
From page 5...
... The past few decades have witnessed not only major advances in understanding and modeling the space-time variability of hydrologic processes including precipitation, soil moisture, and streamflow, but also, more importantly, development of conceptual frameworks to describe this variability across a wide range of scales -- following a physical, phenomenological, or statistical perspective -- known as scaling theories. Because observations cannot be made all the time and everywhere in a watershed and that physically based distributed hydrologic models require extensive data for calibration and verification, such scaling theories are not only of theoretical interest but also of immense practical importance.
From page 6...
... The study of hydrologic processes on other planets defines the new field of "exohydrology," and research in this area is only just beginning. The experience, insights, observational methods, and models developed by hydrologic scientists are needed to decipher the climate history of other planets.
From page 7...
... How subsurface biota are controlled by and yet also influence hydrologic processes is a frontier area of research. Changes in flow regimes alter not only the spatial extent and quality of freshwater habitats, but also the connectivity between freshwater ecosystems.
From page 8...
... An important challenge for the hydrologic and ecological communities is to understand the complex ways in which flow regimes impact critical ecological processes and the maintenance and dispersal of aquatic taxa in aquatic ecosystems. Earth's ecosystems are in a state of transition as a result of climate variability and change and changing land use.
From page 9...
... The water quality profile of the planet is evolving in space and time as new contaminants are introduced to the water cycle and old contaminant use continues. Understanding of this evolution has significantly advanced in recent years, largely because gains in chemical analytical instrumentation have enabled detection of synthetic organic contaminants in water.
From page 10...
... . Research opportunities at the nexus between water and life include understanding: 3.1 How key hydrologic processes affect the co-evolution of life and the planet; 3.2 How topography, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and the hydrologic processes that connect them may co-organize over geomorphic time scales; 3.3 How subsurface biota are controlled by and influence hydrologic processes; 3.4 The complex ways in which flow regimes impact critical ecological pro cesses and the maintenance and dispersal of aquatic taxa in aquatic ecosystems; 3.5 The processes that determine transitions in ecosystems; and 3.6 Hydroecologic outcomes from conservation and restoration manage ment decisions.
From page 11...
... As technology to probe Earth's mysteries advances, computer models become more and more sophisticated, research relies on ever more extensive data for modeling and analysis, and no single discipline provides the entire knowledge base; building mechanisms to share knowledge, equipment, models, data, and science requires a fostering platform and relevant resources. · Range of Modalities6: A range of modalities plays a critical role in 5 The term "flat," coined by the author Thomas Friedman in his books The World is Flat (2005)
From page 12...
... Collaborative, community building efforts will continue to be relevant for the multiple agencies and organizations that support hydrologic science, including NSF in general and the HS program in particular, in responding effectively to many of the opportunities and challenges presented in this report. Numerous federal agencies and international organizations have varying degrees of responsibility in water science or water management.
From page 13...
... It is important to cultivate hydrologic scientists and engineers with intellectual breadth and disciplinary depth and graduates with enriched communication skills to enable them to easily work on interdisciplinary teams. During the educational experience, periods of practical experience using the laboratory and field, exposure to new technologies, and service-minded activities ("hydrophilanthropy")
From page 14...
... This report challenges scholars in the hydrologic sciences to engage in disciplinary and interdisciplinary research that is both relevant and exciting and that continues to promote education to ensure that a new generation of hydrologic scientists and engineers equipped to face future water resource challenges is born. Water problems will become more complex and global water scarcity will continue to manifest itself in different ways, presenting challenges that have not heretofore been addressed in any consistent way.


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