10.2190/8HLE-91G9-LP0R-XHYG 8HLE91G9LP0RXHYG 1 Landscape Hydrology, A Component of Landscape Ecology 193 205 20020509 20020509 20020509 20020509 8HLE91G9LP0RXHYG.pdf http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=8HLE91G9LP0RXHYG 3 Bruce K. Ferguson School of Environmental Design, University of Georgia, Athens <p>A landscape is a three-dimensional mosaic of interacting environmental components or zones. Landscape hydrology—the movement and storage of water in landscapes—deserves to be seen in a broad view of environmental relationships. A framework is presented to make landscape patterns and environmental relationships comprehensible and manageable. It organizes the types of hydrologic components that exist in landscapes, the fluxes among them, and their implications for mankind's management of water and of the environment in general.</p><p>The water balance summarizes the fluxes of water through a land area. Within a landscape, different types of flows and storages occur in a series of layers or mantles. The dominant types of hydrologic structures and processes in different landscapes can be compared by relating the topography and permeability of the various mantles to the drainage base level. Artificial water supplies and dispositions amount to diversions into and out of the environmental mantles. Water management enables water to be used or disposed by stimulating the mantles to produce altered levels of water quantity, quality, time and place.</p><p>A unified concept of landscape hydrology, reflecting the interaction of environmental mantles, allows recognition of the implications of human management of water and landscape. Ecosystemic cycles are armatures on which to build future land and resource uses. Preservation of the hydrologic equilibrium in landscapes ought to be one of the objectives of resource use.</p> A. Wolman, The Metabolism of Cities, <i>Scientific American, 213</i>, pp. 179-190, 1965. M. Falkenmark and T. Chapman, <i>Comparative Hydrology, An Ecological Approach to Land and Water Resources</i>, Unesco Press, Paris, 1989. V. Klemes, Dilletantism in Hydrology: Transition or Destiny?, <i>Water Resources Research, 22</i>:9, pp. 1775-1885, 1986. C. W. Thornthwaite and J. R. Mather, The Water Balance, <i>Publications in Climatology, 8</i>:1, Laboratory of Climatology, Centerton, New Jersey, 1955. H. Water, <i>Vegetation of the Earth and Ecological Systems of the Geobiosphere</i> (2nd Edition), Springer Verlag, New York, 1979. V. Meentemeyer and W. Elton, The Potential Implementation of Biogeochemical Cycles in Biogeography, <i>The Professional Geographer, 29</i>:3, pp. 266-271, 1977. B. K. Ferguson, Landscape Hydrology: A Unified Guide to Water-Related Design, <i>Proceedings, The Landscape: Critical Issues and Resources</i>, Conference of Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, Utah State University, Logan, pp. 11-21,1983. L. Richards, Ecosystem Water Balance, in <i>Disturbance and Ecosystems, Components of Response</i>, H. A. Mooney and M. Godron (eds.), Springer Verlag, New York, 1983. B. K. Ferguson, Land Environments of Water Management, <i>Journal of Environmental Systems, 14</i>:3, pp. 291-312, 1985. B. K. Ferguson, Environmental Patterns of Water Management, <i>Journal of Environmental Systems, 16</i>:3, pp. 161-178, 1987. J. T. Lyle, <i>Design for Human Ecosystems</i>, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1985. L. B. Leopold, <i>Ethos, Equity, and the Water Resource</i>, Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture, National Research Council, Washington, D. C., 1990. J. E. Lovelock, <i>Gaia, a New Look at Life on Earth</i>, Oxford University Press, New York, 1979.