"Water Work: Careers in Hydrology"

A short, simple DVD introducing those into a brilliant career in hydrology!

Water is not only a part of our lives, water is life. This DVD presentation makes note of that hoping to get viewers curious about the studying of water science known as Hydrology. Watching this short, simple presentation has shared enough to explain what goes into the work of a hydrologist. Given that this video was digitized from VHS, then remastered for DVD, making it perfect for schools to show students who are undecided on a career path, this DVD makes a great choice to encourage and present to those wanting more about the profession.

We get a gentle introduction and a little classroom-like lecture talking about the basics of hydrology. Along the way, you learn of what goes into measuring and tracking water, its flow, its rainfall and even the amount of liquid frozen from snow. These all factor in coinciding with any weather changes, and also when making reports informing local authorities about any likelihoods that may occur on the way. This serves a huge purpose: Helping people and the community. While it is science-based work, you're also giving back to your community/city.

To add with the brief lectures about hydrology, we get a say from experts and a few local authorities chiming in on the basics, findings, their experience and all else that goes into hydrology and its benefits:

All these wonderful, friendly experts and authorities share their points and knowledge in the benefits of hydrology, its implications as to what goes about making the research, finalizing the reports and what it does to help those in charge to alert the community on the best course of action [if necessary]. This means composing the best facts and prediction if there's heavy rainfall, hail, snow and its effects it will have on people's commutes and their residential location. Yes, using computers for calculations and research are a part of it, but also communication—something I personally believe should be key to all jobs, including Life in general. In addition, the viewer(s) also get a showing of some instruments and tools used to measure water, its temperature and all its properties (no, it's not a meter stick nor is it a classroom ruler).

That's very much it! This DVD is very short but easy to watch and provides enough to get viewers, namely students, to be curious about the field of hydrology. I can't speak for everyone, but I bought this for a reason and it's not for the sake of review: I, too, am curious about the field myself and have been wanting to know more about it. We hope you are too!

Now, yes, no field is complete without the appreciation of Mathematics. While this DVD made a brief mention of it, they didn't show any of the math required to learn and understand what goes into calculating and measuring all the properties of water. Our guess, off the top of our heads, are Calculus, Geometry and likely Differential/Integral Calculus along with Linear Algebra. As a matter of fact, the narrator, narrated by Kristen Udowitz, says that anyone with an appreciation and/or knowledge of Science, Mathematics and Computer Science are well on their way in becoming a hydrologist. Not bad, huh? Personally, I wouldn't mind, and after writing this review, I plan to purchase any used introductory textbooks greeting me into the world of hydrology. (A joke? Not at all. After reviving this network's KCU Math website along with our The Seeds of Books section, expect to see discussions and reviews related to hydrology.)

This DVD plays directly to the feature presentation and does not include any menus nor does it feature any bonus material. We don't know the whereabouts as to how this DVD came into being, however, a low-quality version of this has been uploaded by the National Weather Service on YouTube.

This DVD was encoded with MPEG-1/2 (mpgv) at a frame rate of 29.97 interlaced. The audio is stereo compressed with A52 Audio (AC3) going at a sample rate of 48000 Hz and 32 bits per sample. Color space is ITU-R BT.601. Lastly, the subtitles—closed captions—use the EIA-608 (c608) codec. No word was said on what editing system nor what camera were used to create this presentation, but judging by the retro-looking titles and composition, we are going to guess this was edited on the earlier versions of Avid Media Composer/Meridian.

Check out this website to find out more about hydrology!

Despite its mystery release, this DVD is one that ought to be shown to schools having a career fair/day to get students into the world of doing charity work while doing research. We certainly had no idea until we purchased this DVD for our own sake. While we knew the study of water was part of Geological/Physical sciences, to know and understand that water has become its own area of study makes it great! We definitely will plan to explore more of this career path, and because of our love and admiration for Mother Nature, knowing Her, plus the language She speaks of which includes Mathematics, makes us a great candidate in doing more studying and researching about the wonderful world of Hydrology!

Huge thank you to the National Weather Service! This was a great presentation!

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he started blogging in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, plus playing old video/MS-DOS games, digital video archiving, listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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