The last decade has been a period of rapid advances in glacier hydrology and hydrochemistry. These have resulted from the application of new technologies to the direct observation of englacial and subglacial drainage systems via boreholes, from theoretical advances and from increased interactions between fieldworkers and modellers. This collection of papers captures the spirit of these advances highlighting new methodologies, the change in character of hydrological models from lumped conceptual models to physically based, distributed models, and the changing role of field studies in glacier hydrological investigations. Major themes identified in the book are: approaches to defining the structure of drainage systems in cold and temperate glaciers; investigations of the linkages between surface and subsurface components of these systems, and of hydraulic interactions between different elements of subglacial systems; seasonal changes in drainage system properties at local and glacier wide scales; controls on meltwater quality; the integration of field and modelling studies; and problems of scaling up results from studies of valley glaciers to the ice sheet scale.
A theme within this text on glaciology has been the linkage between glacier hydrology and ice mass dynamics. This mediates the way in which glaciers and ice sheets respond to environmental change, and determines ways in which ice masses shape the landscape.
