This authoritative book presents a comprehensive account of the essential roles of nonlinear dynamic and chaos theories in understanding, modeling, and forecasting hydrologic systems. This is done through a systematic presentation of: (1) information on the salient characteristics of hydrologic systems and on the existing theories for their modeling; (2) the fundamentals of nonlinear dynamic and chaos theories, methods for chaos identification and prediction, and associated issues; (3) a review of the applications of chaos theory in hydrology; and (4) the scope and potential directions for the future. This book bridges the divide between the deterministic and the stochastic schools in hydrology, and is well suited as a textbook for hydrology courses.

This book comprehensively accounts the advances in data-based approaches for hydrologic modeling and forecasting. Eight major and most popular approaches are selected, with a chapter for each stochastic methods, parameter estimation techniques, scaling and fractal methods, remote sensing, artificial neural networks, evolutionary computing, wavelets, and nonlinear dynamics and chaos methods.

These approaches are chosen to address a wide range of hydrologic system characteristics, processes, and the associated problems. Each of these eight approaches includes a comprehensive review of the fundamental concepts, their applications in hydrology, and a discussion on potential future directions.

This authoritative book presents a comprehensive account of the essential roles of nonlinear dynamic and chaos theories in understanding, modeling, and forecasting hydrologic systems. This is done through a systematic presentation of: (1) information on the salient characteristics of hydrologic systems and on the existing theories for their modeling; (2) the fundamentals of nonlinear dynamic and chaos theories, methods for chaos identification and prediction, and associated issues; (3) a review of the applications of chaos theory in hydrology; and (4) the scope and potential directions for the future. This book bridges the divide between the deterministic and the stochastic schools in hydrology, and is well suited as a textbook for hydrology courses.