Forty Years of Rangeland Hydrology Research: Are We Making Progress?

A lot of time and resources have been devoted to research in rangeland hydrology over the past 40 years. What have we learned? Natural variability in precipitation and rangeland watershed characteristics necessitate the results be applicable over both spatial and temporal scales. This requires that data be collected over a sufficient area and time span to evaluate not only the normal storm event but maybe more importantly, the extreme (large) events. While there have been some changes in the research approaches of the past 40 years many of the present concepts in rangeland and watershed hydrology have not changed since the 1970s. Are these approaches still valid? There has been very little effort directed toward developing new understanding of the processes, which make up the hydrologic phenomena on rangelands. New principles must be developed from rangeland settings, not adaptations from cultivated agricultural or forested watersheds.