Robert E. Horton
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (May 2008) |
Robert Elmer Horton | |
---|---|
Born | May 18, 1875 |
Died | April 22, 1945 | (aged 69)
Nationality | American |
Known for | Hydrology |
Scientific career | |
Fields | ecologist |
Robert Elmer Horton (May 18, 1875 – April 22, 1945) was an American
Personal History
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. In the later part of his career, he went on to be a private consultant in hydrologic science. His consulting practice included scholarly works (printing of technical books translated from other languages, French, German, Italian, Ukrainian) and conducting theoretical and experimental research with an outdoor lab (Horton Hydrological Laboratory) modeled after Cornell's Hydraulic Lab.
Broader Contributions in Hydrology
During his studies of New York streams, Horton determined that the degree to which
Horton is well known for his study of maximum
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
Unrecognized contribution on evaporation
Horton's contributions to the theory of evaporation were ignored for over 100 years and was recently shown to have great contemporary value, for
Archives of his work
The National Archives at College Park ("Archives II") in College Park, Maryland hosts 94 boxes of Horton's work. Two hydrologists, Keith Beven from Lancaster University, and James Smith[3] from Princeton University, have paid visit to the archive and reported their findings. Smaller archives of his work appear to exist in multiple places, Albion College (his alma mater) and possibly other places.[1]
A crowdfunding initiative was begun in 2023 via GoFundMe to recover Horton's published and unpublished works from the National Archive, which has received contributions from several hydrologists from around the world.
Selected publications
- Horton, R E. (1901). Available water power of Michigan. LCCN 06001228.
- Horton, R. E. (1906). Weir Experiments, Coefficients, and Formulas. LCCN gs06000328.
- Veatch, Arthur Clifford; doi:10.3133/pp44.
- Barrows, Harold Kilbrith; Horton, R. E. (1907). Determination of stream flow during the frozen season. LCCN gs07000166.
- Horton, R. E. (1931). "The field, scope, and status of the science of hydrology". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 12 (1): 189–202. .
- Horton, R. E. (1932). "Drainage-basin characteristics". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 13 (1): 350–361. . (over 3100 citations)
- Horton, R. E. (1933). "The Rôle of infiltration in the hydrologic cycle". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 14 (1): 446–460. . (over 2850 citations)
- Horton, R. E. (1945). "Erosional Development of Streams and Their Drainage Basins; Hydrophysical Approach to Quantitative Morphology". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 56 (3): 275. ISSN 0016-7606. (over 9700 citations)
See also
References
- ^ S2CID 246451136.
- doi:10.1038/23845.
- ^ "James Smith". Civil and Environmental Engineering. Princeton University. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
- Paynter, Henry M. "Robert E. Horton (1875–1945)." American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC. Accessed 2010-07-13.
- Keith, Beven (2004). "Robert E. Horton's perceptual model of infiltration processes". Hydrol. Process. 18 (17): 3447–3460. S2CID 128406516.