"This thought-provoking book demonstrates how processes of landscape transformation, usually illustrated only in simplified or idealized form, play out over time in real, complex landscapes. Trimble illustrates how a simple landscape disturbance, generated in this case by agriculture, can spread an astonishing variety of altered hydrologic and sedimentation processes throughout a drainage basin. The changes have spatial and temporal patterns forced on them by the distinctive topographic structure of drainage basins. "Through painstaking field surveys, comparative photographic records, careful dating, a skillful eye for subtle landscape features, and a geographer's interdisciplinary understanding of landscape processes, the author leads the reader through the arc of an instructive and encouraging story. Farmers-whose unfamiliarity with new environmental conditions led initially to landscape destruction, impoverishment, and instability-eventually adapted their land use and settlement practices and, supported by government institutions, recovered and enriched the same working landscape. "For the natural scientist, Historical Agriculture and Soil Erosion in the Upper Mississippi Valley Hill Country illustrates how an initially simple alteration of land cover can set off a train of unanticipated changes to runoff, erosion, and sedimentation processes that spread through a landscape over decades-impoverishing downstream landscapes and communities. Distinct zones of the landscape respond differently and in sequence. The effects take a surprisingly long time to spread through a landscape because sediment moves short distances during storms and can persist for decades or centuries in relatively stable forms where it resists further movement because of consolidation, plant reinforcement, and low gradients. "For the social scientist, the book raises questions of whether and how people can be alerted early to their potential for environmental disturbance, but also for learning and adopting restorative practices. Trimble's commitment to all aspects of this problem should energize both groups." -Professor Thomas Dunne, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UC Santa Barbara

The late Professor Reds Wolman in his Foreword to the award-winning second edition said, "This is not your ordinary textbook. Environmental Hydrology is indeed a textbook, but five elements often found separately combine here in one text to make it different. It is eclectic, practical, in places a handbook, a guide to fieldwork, engagingly personal and occasionally opinionated. ... and, perhaps most engaging to me, in places the authors offer personal views as well as more strongly worded opinions. The former often relate to evaluation of alternative approaches, or formulations, of specific solutions to specific hydrologic problems." The first and second editions were bestsellers and the third promises to educate people new to the field of hydrology and challenge professionals alike, with insightful solutions to classical problems as well as trendsetting approaches important to the evolving genre. The third edition enhances materials in the second edition and has expanded information on many topics, in particular, evapotranspiration, soil erosion, two-stage ditch design and applications, and stream processes. What's New in the Third Edition: Presents new sections on rock structures in streams, hypoxia, harmful algal blooms, and agricultural practices to reduce nutrient discharges into water resources Enhances the format to aid the reader in finding tables, figures, and equations Contains more than 370 figures, 120 tables, 260 equations, 100 worked examples, 160 problems, and more than 1000 references Collectively, the authors have more than 130 years of international experience and the addition of John Lyon and Suzette Burckhard as co-authors expands the breadth of knowledge presented in this book. More than 60 scientists and engineers in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States provided assistance to round out the offerings and ensure applicability to hydrology worldwide.

"This thought-provoking book demonstrates how processes of landscape transformation, usually illustrated only in simplified or idealized form, play out over time in real, complex landscapes. Trimble illustrates how a simple landscape disturbance, generated in this case by agriculture, can spread an astonishing variety of altered hydrologic and sedimentation processes throughout a drainage basin. The changes have spatial and temporal patterns forced on them by the distinctive topographic structure of drainage basins. "Through painstaking field surveys, comparative photographic records, careful dating, a skillful eye for subtle landscape features, and a geographer's interdisciplinary understanding of landscape processes, the author leads the reader through the arc of an instructive and encouraging story. Farmers-whose unfamiliarity with new environmental conditions led initially to landscape destruction, impoverishment, and instability-eventually adapted their land use and settlement practices and, supported by government institutions, recovered and enriched the same working landscape. "For the natural scientist, Historical Agriculture and Soil Erosion in the Upper Mississippi Valley Hill Country illustrates how an initially simple alteration of land cover can set off a train of unanticipated changes to runoff, erosion, and sedimentation processes that spread through a landscape over decades-impoverishing downstream landscapes and communities. Distinct zones of the landscape respond differently and in sequence. The effects take a surprisingly long time to spread through a landscape because sediment moves short distances during storms and can persist for decades or centuries in relatively stable forms where it resists further movement because of consolidation, plant reinforcement, and low gradients. "For the social scientist, the book raises questions of whether and how people can be alerted early to their potential for environmental disturbance, but also for learning and adopting restorative practices. Trimble's commitment to all aspects of this problem should energize both groups." -Professor Thomas Dunne, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UC Santa Barbara