What is hydrology?

Hydrology, specifically engineering hydrology, helps us learn about water’s role in shaping our world and how we can use it wisely to support both human and natural needs. Life on earth depends on water, it supports ecosystems, agriculture, industry, energy production, and human health. However, water is limited and faces many threats, such as pollution, climate change, population growth, urbanisation, and overexploitation. These challenges can affect the quantity and quality of water available.

As a global professional services company that provides engineering, architecture, environmental, and construction services to various sectors, including water, specialists at GHD are well-versed in hydrology and engineering hydrology and can help you with water-related challenges.

These are some of the hydrology services we offer:

• Blue-green infrastructure and nature-based solutions
• Climate variability, risk assessment and management
• Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
• Dam failure studies and impact assessment
• Data monitoring and analysis
• Design storm/flood updating
• Environmental impacts
• Erosion, scour and sediment control
• Fish passage
• Flood risk mapping and management
• Flow forecasting, flood warning systems, and evacuation planning
• Fluvial geomorphology, sediment transport, landform evolution
• Hydraulic structure design and optimisation (dams, levees, weirs)
• Hydrologic and hydraulic numerical modelling
• Hydrologic and watershed/catchment studies
• Infrastructure risk and vulnerability studies
• Insurance loss and risks
• Master planning
• Receiving water assimilative capacity and mixing studies
• River/stream/waterway monitoring and management
• Spill modelling, planning and response
• Stormwater management and design
• Stormwater quality analysis, including WSUD/SUDS/LID/BMP
• Sustainable water reuse
• Urban flood management
• Water balance and yield studies
• •Water resource assessments, planning and management

At GHD we have delivered many successful projects in hydrology across the world:

• GHD helped design and construct the Los Cerritos Channel Stormwater Capture Facility in California, USA, which captures and treats urban runoff from a 16-square-mile watershed for beneficial reuse, exemplifying effective management of the hydrological cycle.
• GHD designed a 7.3 km water transfer tunnel in the Philippines, overcoming seismic and geological challenges. This crucial infrastructure secures Manila’s water supply and allows the rehabilitation of three existing aqueducts.
• GHD was contracted by Halifax Regional Municipality to update floodplain maps for Sackville River and Little Sackville River in Nova Scotia, Canada. We conducted a historical review, non-stationary frequency analysis and hydraulic modelling to evaluate the flood risks linked to climate change and urbanisation, enabling better flood management in the region. 

Articles referenced

^{National Geographic Society 2023, ‘Hydrologic cycle’, retrieved May 15, 2023, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/hydrologic-cycle/}

^{National Geographic Society 2022, ‘Hydrology’, retrieved May 15, 2023, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/hydrology/}

^{Water Science School 2019, ‘What is hydrology?’ retrieved May 15, 2023, from https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/what-hydrology}