Field observations and process understanding in hydrology: essential components in scaling

During the past several decades, major advances have been made in statistical hydrology, modelling, and indirect methods for evaluating hydrological response. New approaches have been developed for flood prediction, movement of water and chemicals through heterogeneous porous media, sediment transport in rivers, pore water pressure dynamics in soils related to landslide initiation, streamflow response at the catchment scale, and coupling of hydrology with atmospheric energy and water balances at larger basin and long time scales. Improvements in remote sensing technology allow researchers to better assess large-scale changes in land cover, surface temperatures, energy budgets, and demographic shifts. Yet, in spite of such sophisticated techniques, the hydrological community is becoming more and more removed from process understanding based on direct field investigations. While it could be argued that at large scales such processes are difficult to measure, I would suggest that this is our collective challenge. Herein, I discuss several issues spanning both scientific and institutional venues that are critical to overcoming some of these limitations concerning practical hydrology problems and applications