Hydrology comes of age: Impact of the International Hydrological Decade

The IHD (International Hydrological Decade), 1965 to 1974, was conceived as a concerted international effort to bring into focus the badly fragmented subdiscipline of hydrology, to evolve a global perspective on water, and to provide global information on water. Until the last decade or so, hydrology was a laggard science. The science was also fragmented among surface‐water hydrology, agricultural hydrology, groundwater hydrology, oceanology, hydrometeorology, and hydrogeochemistry. All these disciplines were bona fide members of the hydrological family, but there was little interchange, so there was no central focus for the science as a whole. ©1980. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.