Ground Water Hydrology

The reviews written in 2000 and 2001 referred to the 2nd edition. The 3rd edition, published in 2004, is now up-to-date. The 3rd edition includes information on modern groundwater modeling methods (including the Modflow model), more coverage of chemical contamination in groundwater, and includes both U.S. and SI units in the examples.

This is a really good book covering a lot of the basics of groundwater hydrology. It covers occurrence, movement, well hydraulics, water wells, environmental influences, quality, and pollution, modeling subsurface investigations. A little outdated but can be used as a great complement to other more recent publications.

In spite of its age, this book continues to be an essential basic reference on the subject. Well organized and clearly written, the authors stated goal was "to present the fundamentals of groundwater hydrology in a manner understandable to [a wide variety of students and professionals]." If I were suddenly called to work in a foreign country and could only take one book, this would be the one. A slight drawback is the use of metric units throughout, perhaps because the book was expected to be translated into a number of foreign languages. This is the completely rewritten second edition of the original edition published in 1959. The first edition of this book was probably the first fundamental textbook on the subject. Basic information or equations that are not in Todd, usually can be found in "Groundwater" by Freeze and Cherry (John Cherry was a student of Todd's).