Catchment hydrology


Catchment hydrology is the study of the hydrology in drainage basins.

Water balance

Catchment hydrology is based on the principal of continuity, which is used to perform a water balance on a catchment:
where = inputs, = outputs, and = the change in catchment storage over time.
Neglecting the minor inputs of occult water, the water balance can be revised to
Finally, considering a catchment on a long time scale, typically a year or more, removes the storage component from the equation:

Terminology

There are many terms involved with and related to catchment hydrology. These basic ones are taken from the glossary of terms in Kendall and McDonnell, 1998: