Vertical soundings of the snowpack are essential diagnostic tools for snow hydrologists and avalanche forecasters. Hydrologists require quantitative profiles of snow density from which they can infer the total amount of snow coverage in a region. Because variations in altitude and terrain can result in widely different coverage, they must dig a relatively large number of pits or extract and wei...

In the late 1987, I began discussion on the education of hydrologists with Dr S. Dumitrescu, Director of the Division of Water Sciences of UNESCO. Our concern is reflected in the following two excerpts from the related correspondence: ".... There has been a growing awareness that hydrology as a geophysical science is making slow progress and has no solid foundations. A major (or perhaps the maj...

It is often assumed that stable water isotopes (dD and d18O) provide redundant information for a given sample of water. In this note we illustrate that the choice of isotope used may influence the resultant hydrograph separation. This is especially true in light of the spatial and temporal variability in the isotopic composition of rainfall water at the catchment scale. We present several possi...