caption death_date birth_place image_size nationality field birth_date known_for article_title name
robert elmer horton april 22 , 1945 parma , michigan 150px american ecologist may 18 , 1875 hydrology robert e. horton
 robert elmer horton
robert e. horton

robert elmer horton -lrb- may 18 , 1875 - april 22 , 1945 -rrb- was an american ecologist and soil scientist , considered by many to be the father of modern hydrology .
born in parma , michigan , he earned his b.s. from albion college in 1897 .
after his graduation , he went to work for his uncle , george rafter , a prominent civil engineer .
rafter had commissioned a weir study , the results of which horton analyzed and summarized .
in 1900 , he was appointed new york district engineer of the united states geological survey .
during his studies of new york streams , horton determined that the degree to which rainfall could reach the aquifer depended on a certain property of the soil , which he called infiltration capacity .
he analyzed and separated the water cycle into the processes of infiltration , evaporation , interception , transpiration , overland flow , etc. .
horton was the first to demarcate and label these now-familiar stages of the cycle .
horton is well known for his study of maximum runoff and flood generation .
his concept of maximum possible rainfall , limiting the effect of rainfall in specific regions , has had a major effect on meteorology .
his studies of overland flow aided in the understanding of soil erosion and provided a scientific basis for soil conservation efforts .
having realized early in his career that the physical character of terrain played a large role in determining runoff patterns , he resolved to isolate the physical factors affecting runoff and flood discharge .
he believed these to include drainage density , channel slope , overland flow length , and other less important factors .
however , late in his career , he began to advocate a very different mechanism of `` hydrophysical '' geomorphology , which he believed better explained his prior observations .
horton detailed his theory in a landmark paper published in 1945 , only a month before his death , in the `` bulletin of the geological society of america '' .
he summarized his conclusions with four laws : the law of stream numbers , the law of stream lengths , the limits of infiltration capacity , and the runoff-detention-storage relation .
his results demonstrate that the salient factor in aqueous soil erosion is the minimum length of overland flow necessary to produce enough runoff to effect erosion .
this seminal work may be considered the founding of modern stream chemistry modeling , since it was the first comprehensive set of mathematical models to link basin hydrology with a water pollutant , namely sediment .
the terminology horton overland flow is named after his accomplishments in hydrology .
horton is the namesake of the robert e. horton medal , awarded by the american geophysical union to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of hydrological geophysics .
