Water Science Primer

My book - and most of this website - is focused on water management, but it presupposes some understanding of the underlying water science. This section of the website is meant to provide the basics of water quality and hydrology for those who don’t have a strong science background or need a refresher. It is organized into three parts:

  • Water as a Molecule focuses on understanding the remarkable physical and chemical properties of water, and how they affect its behavior (and ultimately its management).
  • Introduction to Water Quality covers basic water-quality concepts and explores 16 water-quality parameters.
  • Introduction to Hydrology provides “what you need to know” about the movement of water in the environment, organized around the concepts of stocks and flows.

“Water is wet. Oh water is wet. How much wetter could water get? Not any wetter at all, I bet. Oh water is wet.”

Weird Al Yankovic

“Liquid water is not in itself wet.”

UCSB Science Line (http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=6097)