Chaos in Hydrology: Bridging Determinism and Stochasticity [Hardcover]

This authoritative book presents a comprehensive account of the essential roles of nonlinear dynamic and chaos theories in understanding, modeling, and forecasting hydrologic systems. This is done through a systematic presentation of: (1) information on the salient characteristics of hydrologic systems and on the existing theories for their modeling; (2) the fundamentals of nonlinear dynamic and chaos theories, methods for chaos identification and prediction, and associated issues; (3) a review of the applications of chaos theory in hydrology; and (4) the scope and potential directions for the future.

This book bridges the divide between the deterministic and the stochastic schools in hydrology, and is well suited as a textbook for hydrology courses.

This is a comprehensive account of the key roles that nonlinear dynamic and chaos theories play in the understanding, modeling and forecasting of hydrologic systems. It acts as a bridge between the deterministic and stochastic views in hydrology.

Introduction.- Part A: Hydrologic Systems and Modeling.- Characteristics of hydrologic systems and processes.- Conventional linear stochastic time series methods.- Modern nonlinear time series methods.- Part B: Nonlinear dynamics and chaos.- Fundamentals.- Identification of chaos.- Prediction of chaos.- Part C: Applications of chaos theory in hydrology.- Overview.- Applications to rainfall data.- Applications to river flow data.- Applications to other hydrologic data.- Studies on related problems. Part D: A look ahead.- Current status.-  The future.- References.- Index