Author Archives: Anne Jefferson

How does water that falls on land get to streams?

It’s a rainy day and you can see that the water level is rising in your local stream. That’s because of the rain falling on the stream channel and its tributaries, right? Wrong. In most watersheds, <1% of the land … Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology

Measuring infiltration capacity in the field

Infiltration capacity is measured by devices that let water soak into the ground until a steady rate is reached and then some math. This post focuses on the field work and skips the math. Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

How easily water moves in soil depends on how big the soil pores are, how well they are connected, and how wet they are

Discussion of the controls on saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology

How wet is the unsaturated zone?

How does moisture content and water potential vary as you go down in the unsaturated zone? And what is the vadose zone, anyway? Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

Measuring evapotranspiration components

Evapotranspiration is often said to be the most difficult water balance component to directly measure. When water goes from liquid to vapor, you can’t exactly catch it in a bucket or measure flow in a channel. In my Watershed Hydrology … Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching