This volume charts the development of rainfall-runoff modelling up to 1989 with 30 benchmark papers.
It begins with Mulvany's (1851) presentation of the rational method for estimating peak flow, regarded by many as the first rainfall-runoff model. The original papers on other empirical approaches, such as Sherman (1932) introducing the unit-hydrograph method, and Mockus (1949) which provided the basis for the SCS curve number approach, are included. So too are Richards (1931) and Smith & Parlange (1978), soil physics papers presenting equations central to physically-based rainfall-runoff modelling.
The innovative contributions of Alan Freeze, and later Keith Beven, to physically-based modelling are represented by several of their respective papers. The seminal papers of Moore & Clarke (1981), a statistical distribution approach to rainfall-runoff modelling, and Abbott et al. (1986), the well known process-based SHE model, are also included.