Quantified hydrological cycle
Ciclo hidrológico cuantificado
- Date
- 1674-1686 · confidence high
- Place
- Seine Basin, France
- Credited to
- Pierre Perrault (1674), Edme Mariotte (1686), Edmond Halley (evaporation, 1687); Bernard Palissy (1580)
- People
- 👤 Edme Mariotte1620–1684👤 Edmond Halley1656–1742👤 Pierre Perrault1611–1680
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Perrault measured rainfall in the upper Seine basin and showed it was enough to feed the river, refuting the idea that rivers spring from underground reservoirs connected to the sea; Mariotte and Halley completed the balance with infiltration and evaporation.
Coordinates of Paris; the measurements were made in the headwaters of the Seine (Burgundy). A concept intuited in antiquity, quantified in the 17th century.
What it led to
- Hydrology as a quantitative science
- Watershed and water resource management
- Understanding of aquifers and springs
Built on
- Palissy and Leonardo's ideas on rain and rivers
- Aristotelian theories of underground condensation
Made possible
- Aquifers and Darcy's law of groundwater flow1856
- Rain gauge and river flow measurement
- Water balance