In hydrology

Hydrology

Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability...

, behavioral modeling is a modeling

Scientific modelling

Scientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...

 approach that focuses on the modeling of the behavior of hydrological system

System

System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....

s.

The behavioral modeling approach makes the main assumption that every system, given its environment, has a most probable

Probability

Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...

 behavior. This most probable behavior can be either determined directly based on observable

Observable

In physics, particularly in quantum physics, a system observable is a property of the system state that can be determined by some sequence of physical operations. For example, these operations might involve submitting the system to various electromagnetic fields and eventually reading a value off...

 system characteristics and expert knowledge or, the most frequent case, has to be inferred from the available information and a likelihood

Likelihood

Likelihood is a measure of how likely an event is, and can be expressed in terms of, for example, probability or odds in favor.-Likelihood function:...

 function that encodes the probability

Probability

Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...

 of some assumed behaviors.

This modeling approach has been proposed recently by Sivapalan et al. (2006) in watershed

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

 hydrology.

See also

• Ecohydrology
  Ecohydrology
  Ecohydrology is an interdisciplinary field studying the interactions between water and ecosystems. These interactions may take place within water bodies, such as rivers and lakes, or on land, in forests, deserts, and other terrestrial ecosystems...
  
  
• Geomorphology
  Geomorphology
  Geomorphology is the scientific study of landforms and the processes that shape them...
  
  
• Biogeomorphology
  Biogeomorphology
  thumb|right|Slope stabilization by [[Chilean rhubarb]] on the coasts of [[Chacao Channel]]. Vegetation have mostly a protective effect on slopes.Biogeomorphology and ecogeomorphology are the study of interactions between organisms and the development of landforms, and are thus fields of study...
  
  
• Fluvial landforms of streams
  Fluvial landforms of streams
  The fluvial landforms of streams, stream beds, and river valleys have various landforms.-Classification:*Consequent streams are streams whose course is a direct consequence of the original slope of the surface upon which it developed, i.e., streams that follow slope of the land over which they...