HR: 10:20h
AN: H52D-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Ancient and Modern Hydrology: The Common Ground
AU: * Dagan, G
EM: dagan@eng.tau.ac.il
AF: Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69968 Israel
AB: The archeological site of Tzipori (near Nazareth) in Israel contains a beautiful ancient mosaic that depicts the Nile in an allegoric manner. One of the striking details is a Nilometer, a graded pillar that was used in order to measure the Nile level. These data were used by ancient hydrologists in order to predict the Nile regime during the coming season. In turn, these assessments provided the Pharaoh administration with the basis for taxation of the peasant population. These historical findings render Hydrology as one of the oldest technical professions. Furthermore, a few features of ancient hydrology characterize the modern one also: it is a quantitative discipline, it has an applied nature, it makes prediction under uncertainty and it is intertwined with economical and social considerations. The presentation is focused on these analogies and mainly with the need to cope with uncertainty, with emphasis on the novel and distinctive features of stochastic modeling of subsurface flow and transport.
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1832 Groundwater transport
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1869 Stochastic hydrology
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005