What Can Geologists, Engineers, and Soil Scientists Do?
Hydrologic engineers are developing increasingly sophisticated modeling techniques to predict runoff, stream flow, and sediment transport within drainage basins. The modelers require detailed quantitative knowledge of the landscape variables of topography, rocks, soils, vegetation, and climatic variability outlined above. Geologists, soil scientists, hydrologists, and biologists all can contribute by documenting the details of the landscape variables and gathering them into geographic information systems (GIS). Geologists and soil scientists may also help by testing the results of the models by monitoring landscape changes in relation to weather-related events, longer-term climate fluctuations, vegetation changes, land-use changes, etc. Finally, geologists and paleobiologists can determine the longer-term record of changes by studying the sediments stored in arroyo banks and other deposits. New, more sophisticated techniques may be developed to extract the flood, vegetative, and climat
