Chapter 2. Water Availability: Spatial and Temporal Variability

This chapter covers the basics of how much water is available in different regions, with a focus on hydrologic variability, especially drought. We address questions like these:

  • How much water is available for human use, and how does this vary across the world?
  • How do floods and droughts affect water availability?
  • What can we learn about drought from the paleoclimate record?

To the right you can download resources from the book and access new resources relevant to this chapter.

Chapter 2 Resources

Table of Contents 

Highlights

Table 1: The volume of water in different stocks

Figure 1: The global hydrologic cycle

Figure 2: Global map of the Aridity Index (AI)

Figure 3: Sample hydrograph

Figure 4: Sample flow duration curve

Figure 5: Sample flood frequency analysis

Figure 6: Sample PDF (probability density function)

Figure 7: Rainfall intensity-duration-frequency curves

Figure 8: Land-atmosphere feedback loops

Figure 9: History of drought in the Southwest

Figure B1: Watersheds and stream orders

Figure B2: Simple feedback loops

Supplemental Resources

Case Study: The Great Plains and the Hundredth Meridian

Chapters in Part 1