Distributed hydrological modelling - applications of the topmodel concept. K. J. Beven, ed. Chichester, Wiley, 1997. vi, 348 s., ill., 26 cm. GBP 40.

The rainfall-runoff model TOPMODEL has been distributed worldwide. As water flows downhill il is obvious thai lopography musl by hydrologically significant. It is therefore important to utilize ihe increasing amount of available digital lerrain data. TOPMODEL is capable of using these dala to improve hydrological predictions in many cases, but nol in all.

The current popularity of TOPMODEL is a resull of Ihe availabilily of GIS systems and Software programs ihal can handle digital maps. The book contains papers ihal åre moslly derived from ihe first TOPMODEL workshop held at Lancaster University together with papers published in Hydrological Processes. The two first papers written by K.Beven and M.J.Kirkby, founders of the model, deals with basic concepts and critique of the model. The rest of the papers deal with e.g scaling problems or sensitivity analysis of the model or with the application of the model for e.g. predicting groundwater levels or the hydrological functioning of mediterranean mountain basins. The book is recommended to students and graduales who want to explore the posibilities of TOPMODEL before entering the process of practical use of the model.