This book is a concise introduction to modelling hydrological processes, based on the author’s own rich experience in the subject. The primary focus are distributed, physics-based models, which the author strongly advocates, applied to estimating surface runoff at the river basin scale. However, most of the material presented refers to general principles, of use in a much wider context.

The book explains how to model infiltration and related processes, estimate parameters of various infiltration models based on the Green-Ampt equation from soil properties or infiltration measurements (the former treated in more detail), derive different types of hydraulic roughness coefficients using land use/cover classification schemes and construct drainage networks from digital elevation models. Some technical background on the physical processes that govern water flow is also given, along with a description of general techniques, such as generating raster surfaces from irregularly spaced data points using inverse distance weighting, surface interpolation by kriging, and several spline methods.

The issues and caveats one may encounter and must be aware of are emphasized throughout the text. These include the problems of interfacing diverse types and representations of GIS data; selecting an appropriate spatial resolution to balance model precision against computational efficiency (an information-theoretic statistic to guide the choice is devised); data quality and availability, including a detailed description of estimating precipitation from weather radar observations; and calibrating the models for specific purposes. The role of fractal scaling in choosing resolution and calibrating the model is also discussed.

The book has a nice, modular structure. The reader may peruse the introduction and jump to a specific topic, if necessary. A glossary and a moderate-sized index are quite helpful. Unfortunately, the typesetting of some equations leaves much to be desired.

The interdisciplinary character of distributed hydrological modelling has forced the author to choose between creating a large, detailed, "brick-type" book, or a lighter guide with details omitted. Here a nice golden rule was found. Subsequent chapters contain some technical background and provide a general overview of what has been done on particular topics, allowing the reader to pursue the matter further and find the details in appropriate papers if necessary. The general parts are coupled by extended examples in each chapter, where the methods presented are applied step by step, as well as by the more specific final chapters, containing case studies, a detailed description of a hydrological model r.water.fea (part of the GRASS GIS), developed by the author and his collaborators, and, in the appendix, the user’s manual for the ArcView version of the model.

The book is addressed to faculty members, senior and graduate students, civil, agricultural, water resources and environmental engineers, hydrologists, physical geographers, and hydrometeorologists engaged in hydrological modelling.

Adam Mickiewicz University

Poznań, Poland