HORVÁTH

HUNGARY (see also List of Individuals)

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25.7.1843 Pest/H - 18.4.1881 Budapest/H

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Ignác Horváth Pálóczi graduated as a civil engineer from the Budapest University of Technology in 1864. He there was in 1869 appointed professor of hydraulics. Horváth was a Corresponding Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1874.

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Horváth was the first to use a current meter combined with a self-made electrical signaling device later always adopted to current meters for detecting its rotational speed, and thus to determine the local flow velocity. Horváth was able to measure the peak discharge of the 1876 flood of the Danube River in Budapest, thereby applying the area-discharge method. He also applied a device similar to a Morse-type telegraph for recording both the rotations of the current meter and the clock signals onto a paper tape. One of the four pen arms was connected to the circuit of the current meter and its pin scratched a short line on the paper at an interval of 100 or 10 meter rotations. The second arm scratched a short line every second while the third arm drew a horizontal long line once the instrument had reached the river bottom. To improve and to accelerate discharge measurements mean velocities in a vertical profile were determined from the 1880s. The results of these observations were successively published to allow access to colleagues. Following these developments, Sámuel Hajós (1853-1927) further developed the river gauging in Hungary. Together with the Frenchmen and the Austrians, the Hungarians therefore were true pioneers in this particular field of hydrometry. Given the large flood plains in their country, flood prediction and flood prevention had a long history which justified these actions. Today, the VITUKI in Budapest is still a leading hydrologic organization active in water resources research in general, and in hydrometry in particular.

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_{Anonymous (1967). Ignác Horváth. Magyar életrajzi lexikon 1: 746. Akadémiai Kiadó: Budapest.}

_{Horváth, I., László, B. (1875). Műszaki mechanika a súrlódás elmélete alkalmazott hidraulika.}

_Budapest.

_{Horváth, I. (1970). Etude sur modèle réduit des processus hydrauliques et de demande d'oxygène des basins d'aération. Etudes des Recherches 29. VITUKI: Budapest.}

_{László, F. (1986). Horváth Ignác. Vizügyi Közlemények 68(2): 275 (in Hungarian). P}

_{Stelczer, K. (1986). 100 years of the hydrological service in Hungary. Budapest.}