Review of Hydrology for Engineers, Geologists, and Environmental Professionals by Sergio E. Serrano: HydroScience Inc., Ambler, Pennsylvania, 2010, [ISBN 978-0-9655643-4-2], 575 p.

This is the second edition of the book with the same title. As stated in the preface by the author, “This book is a response to the need for a hydrology book with a clear, balanced approach to surface, subsurface, and contaminant hydrology.” In an effort to meet the need, this edition is a completely revised, updated, and enlarged version that incorporates new developments in nonlinear hydrologic science; many modeling applications; a standard mathematics software, Maple; and hydrologic consequences of climate change. The revised version has a number of attractive features, including the following: (1) notations in the book are consistent throughout; (2) units of measurement are SI throughout; and (3) many empirical formulas have been translated into SI units. These features contribute to enjoyable reading.

The subject matter of the book is divided into 11 chapters and two appendices. Introducing water as a fundamental element in nature, Chapter 1 discusses the nature of hydrology, presents the hydrologic cycle and its components, provides a brief history of hydrology, and goes on to discuss climate variability and hydrology, the connection between hydrology and fundamental laws of physics, the schematic of a hydrologic system, the concept of a watershed, and water balance. The chapter is concluded with a number of solved examples.

Precipitation constitutes the subject matter of Chapter 2. Beginning with a discussion of the occurrence and mechanisms of precipitation, the chapter goes on to present analyses of point precipitation, spatial distribution, and frequency distributions. The chapter is concluded with a brief discussion of maximum probable precipitation.

Chapter 3 is devoted to the theory and application of evapotranspiration. Discussing the importance of evaporation and transpiration, the chapter presents concepts and theories of evaporation from free water bodies, transpiration from vegetation, and evapotranspiration.

The subject matter of Chapter 4 is infiltration and recharge. Providing a background of infiltration in the hydrologic cycle, it starts with a treatment of soil physical properties, and goes on to present modeling of infiltration and popular infiltration models, and measurement infiltration. The chapter is concluded with a discussion on groundwater recharge.

Theory and application of saturated groundwater flow are covered in Chapter 5. Starting with a brief discussion of groundwater in the hydrologic cycle, it presents concepts and principles of groundwater flow, groundwater flow equations and their solutions, and groundwater modeling. Exploration of groundwater concludes the chapter.

Chapter 6 presents surface runoff and streamflow. Generation of streamflow is discussed first. Then, the discussion moves on to the measurement of streamflow, streamflow hydrograph, and methods for analysis and synthesis of runoff hydrograph. The concluding part is on hydrologic simulation models.

Hydrology of extremes is presented in Chapter 7. Beginning with a discussion of flood wave propagation and methods of analyses, it goes on to discuss frequency analyses of floods and droughts, and is concluded with the hydrology of drainage systems.

Chapter 8 dwells on the hydrology and water quality. It qualitatively discusses hydrological aspects of water quality, measures of water quality, sources of water contamination, and water quality standards. It is a good summary of sources of water contamination and water-quality measures.

The hydrology of river contamination is the subject matter of Chapter 9. Discussing first concepts of modeling of water quality in rivers and streams, the chapter goes on to discuss the impact of pollution on dissolved oxygen and the effect of the sources of waste on water quality and its quantification.

Chapter 10 deals with the hydrology of lake contamination. It is an introductory chapter encompassing lakes as completely mixed systems, lakewide response to suspended sediments, and lakewide response to an instantaneous spill.

The concluding Chapter 11 deals with soil and ground water pollution. The first part of the chapter deals with the propagation of contaminants in the subsurface, including land disposal of solid waste, chemical spills, and nonaqueous phase liquids. The second part focuses on modeling contaminant dispersion in aquifers, including advection, diffusion, dispersion, and scale dependency; predicting groundwater pollution, nonconservative contaminants, contaminant transport and linear and nonlinear sorption, modeling pollution in two dimensions, and application to spills originating in unsaturated zone. The chapter is concluded with a discussion on monitoring groundwater quality. Appendix A contains conversion factors; Appendix B has solutions to end-of-chapter problems; and there is a decent bibliography at the end of the book.

The book has been written with a broad audience in mind. For example, it can be used for a three credit-hour, one-semester course at an advanced undergraduate level or a beginning graduate level. Depending on one’s interest and preference, one can choose material from different chapters, for there is sufficient flexibility in the book. The book is written in a clear and easy-to-understand manner, and there is a wealth of information reflecting the author’s deep knowledge and experience. It requires no advanced background in fluid mechanics and mathematics or statistics. The best part of the book is that it has numerous solved practical examples, end-of-the-chapter problems, and a significant amount of new material. The emphasis is on concepts and their illustration, and the author has made a concerted effort to avoid lengthy derivations. This is an attractive feature from a student’s perspective. I believe the book will be useful not only for teaching a course in hydrology but also for solving practical engineering problems. Thus, teachers, professionals, managers, and researchers in engineering, geology, and environmental science and engineering will find the book to be valuable. It will make an excellent addition to one’s bookshelf.