The period of 1967–1974, in Urban Hydrology, was called the period of “tool making” by McPherson (1980) and was followed by the 1975–1978 period of “tool wielding”. The four years of 1979–1982 are characterized primarily by a greater attention to the problems associated with the runoff quality, by the extension and improvement of computer models for a better simulation of pollutant washoff and pollutant effects on receiving streams, by a better understanding of the limitations of detention basins, by the recognition that detention can contribute to pollution abatement and finally by the acquisition of a very much needed and extensive data base on urban rainfall runoff quantity and quality and practices of urban runoff pollution control through the US EPA/USGS Nationwide Urban Runoff Program. One of the effects of this latter program is that the concept of watershed‐wide management for environmental protection was sharpened in terms of the control of flooding and of the quality of urban runoff and of the impacts on receiving streams.
These last four years witnessed a maturing of urban hydrology which was manifest in the publication of a number of books on the subject. Kibler (1982b), Sheafer et al. (1982), Whipple et al. (1982), Novotny and Chester (1981), American Public Works Association (1981) and Lazaro (1979).