The term “stochastic hydrology” implies a statistical approach to hydrologic problems as opposed to classic hydrology which can be considered deterministic in its approach. During the International Hydrology Symposium, held 6-8 September 1967 at Fort Collins, a number of hydrology papers were presented consisting to a large extent of studies on long records of hydrological elements such as river run-off, these being treated as time series in the statistical sense. This approach is, no doubt, of importance for future work especially in relation to prediction problems, and there seems to be no fundamental difficulty for introducing the stochastic concepts into various hydrologic models. There is, however, some developmental work required – not to speak of educational in respect to hydrologists – before the full benefit of the technique is obtained.
The present paper is to some extent an exercise in the statistical study of hydrological time series – far from complete – and to some extent an effort to interpret certain features of such time series from a physical point of view. The material used is 30 years of groundwater level observations in an esker south of Uppsala, the observations being discussed recently by Hallgren & Sands-borg (1968).
The Fort Collins commuter study: Variability in personal exposure to air pollutants by microenvironment
