Interests extend to water and energy conservation and to protection of the environment.
Complementary regional-scale hydrology models are being developed to study the time and space scale effects on predicted water flow and solute transport. Areas as diverse as a tundra region in Alaska and an irrigation district in California are under investigation. Bridging the gap in data computer structures used in GIS and the hydrology models is a related focus for the research. The models simulate water transport from the ocean to the terminous of the watershed. Only the final leg to the ocean is missing to complete the cycle.