Surface Hydrology
General
Prefix
AHS
Course Number
334
Course Level
Undergraduate
Instruction Mode
Lec/Lab
Department/Unit(s)
College/School
College of Science and Engineering
Description
Conceptual basis and modeling of hydrologic processes on Earth's surface: precipitation, infiltration, evaporation, runoff. Rainfall-runoff transformation at the watershed level. Hydrologic routing of floods. Applications to water resource management and environmental problems. Lab.
Prerequisites
Credits
Min
4
Max
4
Repeatable
No
Goals and Diversity
MN Goal Course
No
Cultural Diversity
No
Learning Outcomes
Outcome
Apply the principle of conservation of mass (water budget) to different hydrologic reservoirs (lakes and reservoirs, rivers, watersheds) to predict their hydrologic responses, quantify hydrologic driving mechanisms, and predict alterations on the natural hydrologic system responses due to engineering.
Outcome
Examine the physics of basic hydrologic processes such as evaporation, evapotranspiration, infiltration, snowmelt and quantify these processes under different real-world situations or problems using conceptual or analytical models.
Outcome
Apply statistical principles and concepts to the analysis of time series such as precipitation and discharge. Apply known theoretical probability distributions to the analysis of floods, duration of flows for reservoir control, or treatment plant and hydroelectric power plant operations.
Outcome
Predict and explain the response of watersheds to precipitation or snow-melting events using the unit hydrograph theory with infiltration models. Apply to cases of gaged and non-gaged watersheds.
Outcome
Predict and evaluate the results of different hydrologic routing models to lakes or rivers. Analyze and quantify flood propagation, attenuation, celerities and volumes.