State Hydrological Institute
Is:
- the leading scientific-methodological center of Russia in
the field of developing the optimum methods for locating
hydrological network and river hydrometry, creating
modern models and methods for accelerated measurements of
water discharge, runoff accounting at hydroelectric power
plants and other hydraulic structures;
- designing and developing modern high-tech means for
hydrological studies and producing small lots of
promising instruments and equipment, and metrological
certification, trials and calibration of hydrological
measuring devices;
- conducting on a regular basis the water inventory of the
country, developing computer technologies of collecting,
processing, logging and disseminating the data of
hydrological observations, carrying out the exploitation
of the data banks of the federal water inventory;
- accomplishing fundamental investigations of the
conditions for the formation of water resources and
principal elements of hydrological cycle: atmospheric
precipitation, river runoff, evaporation, infiltration
and infiltration alimentation of ground waters, and
building mathematical models for the river runoff
formation;
- developing the methods for taking account of man's impact
on water resources and hydrological cycle of large water
objects (rivers, lakes, reservoirs, bogs, aquifers), and
conducting studies on estimating and forecasting
anthropogenic effects on water resources;
- accomplishing global generalisations on the current state
of water resources in the world, and their use with
assessing global tendencies of water use development, and
developing forecasts of future water resources in the
21st century at the global scale;
- making, at the global and national levels, assessments
and forecasts of possible anthropogenic climate changes
and water cycle in the atmosphere, and studying their
effects on water resources and hydrological cycle,
environ-mental conditions and economy;
- developing the methods and computer technologies for
calculating basic hydrological characteristics used in
engineering practice with designing, constructing and
exploiting structures on different water objects, and
creating federal specifications in the field at issue;
- conducting theoretical and experimental studies on
physical conditions for heat-and moisture exchange in
soil, snow and ice covers, freezing and melting processes
, evaporation from land and water, ground water
transport, and other phenomena related to moisture
exchange between the surface atmospheric layer, land
surface and soil;
- accomplishing studies on surface and ground water
interactions in river basins, revealing the features of
water resource formation in cryolithozone;
- gaining long-term experience in studying river channel
deformations, transport and re-deposition of bottom and
suspended sediments, erosion processes on river
watersheds by the methods of mathematical and physical
modeling, conducting laboratory and prototype
experiments;
- accomplishing studies and estimation of ecological state
of large water objects and water systems in the regions
with intensive man's activities including developing
hydroecological criteria, the determining methods for
indices of ecological safety of water ways and water
bodies, solving practical problems related to assessing
the ecological situation on water objects;
- organising and conducting large-scale experimental
studies on hydrological phenomena and processes in the
prototype conditions at unique experimental ground sites
of the Valdai Branch of SHI.