Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

2010

Publisher

American Chemical Society

Source Publication

Environmental Science & Technology

Source ISSN

0013-936X

Abstract

To properly remediate, improve, or predict how hydrological systems behave, it is vital to establish their histories. However, modern-style records, assembled from instrumental data and remote sensing platforms, hardly exist back more than a few decades. As centuries of data is preferable given multidecadal fluxes of both meteorology/climatology and demographics, building such a history requires resources traditionally considered only useful in the social sciences and humanities. In this Feature, Pastore et al. discuss how they have undertaken the synthesis of historical records and modern techniques to understand the hydrology of the Northeastern U.S. from Colonial times to modern day. Such approaches could aid studies in other regions that may require heavier reliance on qualitative narratives. Further, a better insight as to how historical changes unfolded could provide a “past is prologue” methodology to increase the accuracy of predictive environmental models.

Comments

Accepted version. Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 44, No. 23 (2010): 8798-8803. DOI. © 2010 American Chemical Society. Used with permission.

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