Teaching
FOR 595B Special Topics: Introduction to Watershed Modeling
This course will introduce students to the development, use and testing of watershed models. It will introduce students to the steps in the modeling process, including defining a perceptual, conceptual and procedural watershed model. It will address model calibration and validation. The course material will be presented using a systems approach relevant to watershed hydrology and many other earth and life sciences. Students will develop and explore watershed model structures using an object-based representation software http://www.simulistics.com/. Concepts on how to evaluate model predictive uncertainty and model equifinality (where a model gives the right answer for the wrong reasons) will be explored. In addition to assignments, students will develop their own class project related to a hydrologic system of their choosing using the simulistics object-based software or software of their own choosing.
FOR 595B Watershed and Wetland Hydrology
In this course students will study the movement and storage of water, first at the global scale and then at the scale of small watersheds. Emphasis will be on developing a processes level understanding of what controls the rate and magnitude of water flux from its point of entry to a catchment through to its exit point(s). We will begin with looking at the exchanges of water between the atmosphere and the surface of a watershed and wetland. Then we will trace the one-dimensional flow of water through soils. However, once the water reaches the groundwater system, or if the flow of soil water is impeded causing lateral surface or subsurface flow, we need to treat the catchment as a three-dimensional system. We will apply the knowledge of process to explain seasonal and storm-event runoff generation. We will study the functioning of watersheds and wetlands and their relationship to each other in the landscape. We will study the characterization and classification of the landscape. At appropriate times during the course a process level understanding will be applied to some of the most pressing issues in water resources.
