Water Resource Courses
Water Resource Courses
*Recommended courses are highlighted*
If you do not have a undergraduate degree in engineering, you will need to take these additional courses:
(These courses will not count towards your degree)
CEGE 4501 Hydrologic Design
CEGE 4522 Introduction to Fluid Mechanics
MATH 2243 Linear Algebra and Differential Equations
Undergraduate Courses: (Will not count towards graduate degree)
CEGE 3502 Fluid Mechanics
CEGE 4501 Hydrologic Design
Advanced Undergraduate Courses/Graduate Courses:
CEGE 4512 Open Channel Hydraulics
CEGE 4563 Pollutant Fate and Transport: Processes and Modeling
CEGE 5511 Urban Hydrology and Water Quality
CEGE 5512 Stochastic Ecohydrology
CEGE 5513 Energy Conversion from Wind, Hydro, and Solar Resources
CEGE 5514 Granular Physics with Environmental and Engineering Applications
CEGE 5515 Remote Sensing of Environment and Water Resources
CEGE 5516 Stream Mechanics
CEGE 5523 Uncertainty in Climate, Weather, and Hazards: Foundations for Resilient Engineering
CEGE 5543 Introductory Environmental Fluid Mechanics
Advanced Graduate Courses:
CEGE 8503 Environmental Mass Transport
CEGE 8506 Stochastic Hydrology
CEGE 8507 Advanced Methods in Hydrology
CEGE 8508 Ecological Fluid Mechanics
CEGE 8511 Mechanics of Sediment Transport
CEGE 8521 The Atmospheric Boundary Layer
CEGE 8561 Analysis and Modeling of Aquatic Environments I
CEGE 8601 Introduction to Stream Restoration
CEGE 8602 Stream Restoration Practice
Graduate Courses in Related Fields:
BBE 8513 Hydrologic Modeling of Small Watersheds
CEGE 5542 Experimental Methods in Environmental Engineering
EEB 5601 Limnology
ESCI 4702 General Hydrogeology
ESPM 5061 Water Quality and Natural Resources
FNRM 5114 Hydrology and Watershed Management
FNRM 5153 Forest and Wetland Hydrology
WRS 5101/PA 5723 Water Policy
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: CEGE 3502, upper division CSE or grad student
Description
Theories of flow in open channels, including gradually varied and rapidly varied flows, steady and unsteady flows. Computational methods for unsteady open channel flows, applications to flood routing. Introduction to moveable bed mechanics.
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F only
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: CEGE 3101, CEGE 3501
Description
This course will focus on understanding the processes that dictate chemical fate in surface waters, including
air-water transfer, adsorption, and biological and abiotic degradation. Students will evaluate the kinetics of
these processes by interpreting experimental data. They will also characterize transport in surface waters by
building theoretical and computational models from scratch that incorporate advection, diffusion and
dispersion transport processes. Students will develop finite difference solutions to advection-diffusion-reaction
equations, using ideal and non-ideal reactor theory, to describe the ultimate fate of pollutants in surface water
systems such as rivers, lakes, and estuaries. Fate and transport of organic pollutants (such as pesticides and
pharmaceuticals), as well as biochemical oxygen demand and nutrient pollution, will be studied.
Prereq: CEGE 3101, CEGE 3501, or instructor consent
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: CEGE 4501 or BBE 5513, upper division CSE
Description
Urban hydrology for small watersheds and the management of storm water quality and quantity.
prereq: CEGE 4501or BBE 5513, upper division CSE or grad student or instructor consent
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: CEGE undergraduate jr or sr or CEGE graduate student
Description
This course will provide the theoretical and quantitative basis for understanding the interactions between the water cycle, vegetation, soil biogeochemistry, and the atmosphere. A main focus of the course will be on modeling the water and carbon dynamics across the soil-plant-atmosphere system. We will provide probabilistic descriptions of this system at the daily, seasonal, and interannual timescales by incorporating various sources of randomness and non-stationarity within the environment, particularly those from rainfall. These concepts and tools will be discussed in the context of sustainable management of water resources and terrestrial ecosystems, especially in view of the changes in the hydrological regime from climate change and societal pressures.
prereq: MATH 2373, MATH 2374
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: CEGE 3502 or equivalent
Description
During this class the physical principles of energy conversion from alternative resources as wind, hydro and solar will be presented and discussed, with an emphasis on fluid mechanics and geophysical flows (atmospheric boundary layer, rivers, tidal flows).
We will start with the resource assessment devoted to quantify the available energy in the environment (wind, rivers, and sun). Each energy resource module will include basic economic principles and assumption enabling the quantification of the efficiency and the costs of energy transformation, as well as an estimate of environmental effects (when possible).
We will focus on the details on wind, streams, wave and solar power using conservation equations and basic principles of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics.
prereq: CEGE 3502 or equivalent
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: CSE Grad Student
Description
This class concerns ways in which relatively straightforward particle-scale phenomenology is directly related to larger-scale behaviors of concern to environmental and engineering processes. These larger scale behaviors include pattern formation driven by cooperative sorting and advection dynamics. They also include quasi-static and dynamic non-linear responses to stresses and other forcing. Applications we discuss include particle transport in rivers, wetlands reclamation, pavement compaction, and industrial mixing.
As many large-scale and small-scale phenemonelogy can be counter-intuitive without experience, the in-class work is supplemented by two sets of hand-on activities. (1) students will explore these phenomenology in physical laboratories and (2) students will explore details unattainable in the physical laboratory by modifying existing computational simulations. (e.g., behavior in zero gravity, chaotic particle pathways, small-scale structures in colloidal suspensions). Minimal prior programming experience is expected. Programming assignments will be designed to be flexible for students of all levels of such experience.
Prereqs: Graduate student in CSE or permission of instructor and/or CEGE 3502, MATH 2373, MATH 2374
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
The course presents fundamentals of probability theory, statistical learning, and physics of remotes sensing to increase understanding and technical knowledge of undergraduate and graduate students about Earth data analysis and remote sensing.
Prereqs: CEGE 4501 is recommended
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Streams are the principal means for the delivery of the water, sediments, and nutrients that are required to sustain life on the Earth's surface. This course discusses the fundamental mechanisms that drive physical transport processes in streams, the role of these physical processes in the stream ecosystem functions, as well as the impacts of biota on these physical processes. The specific topics include open channel flow, sediment transport, channel geomorphology, groundwater flow, the advection and diffusion of nutrients and pollutants. We will also briefly discuss how these physical processes impact stream ecological functions and how biota impacts these physical processes. In addition, we will briefly discuss current ways to restore streams, especially methods to increase channel stability.
Prereqs: Multivariable Calculus
Course Detail
Units: 4 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
The course presents fundamentals of probability theory, statistical learning, and physics of remotes sensing to increase understanding and technical knowledge of undergraduate and graduate students about Earth data analysis and remote sensing.
Prereqs: CEGE 4501 is recommended
Course Detail
Units: 4 units
Grading Basis: A-F
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: CEGE 3502 or AEM 4201 or ChEn 3005, upper division CSE or grad
Description
Climate and engineering. Pre-21st century variability in climate, weather, and associated hazards: impacts on resilient engineering design; quantifying modern climate change and impacts on infrastructure. Changes in earth-space energy balances, timescales of extreme weather and hazards, and resilient infrastructure. Endeavors to minimize negative impacts to human and natural infrastructure
Prereq: (Math 2374 or equivalent, Phys 1302W or equivalent) or grad student or instructor permission
Course Detail
Units: 4 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Principles of intraphase and interfacial chemical transport and fate in the environment, specifically the processes of diffusion, dispersion, and convection. Application to surface water and atmospheric mixing, dispersion in groundwater, and transport between these media.
prereq: CEGE 3502, CEGE 3501 or equiv or instr consent
Course Detail
Units: 4 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Analysis and synthesis of hydrologic series and systems; derived distributions; uncertainty and risk analysis; flood frequency analysis; multivariate time series analysis; correlation and spectral analysis; series of long-range dependence; linear estimation; geostatistics; sampling networks; hydrologic forecasting.
prereq: Stat 3021 or equiv or instr consent
Course Detail
Units: 4 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Notions of scale-invariance, scaling, and multiscaling in geophysical processes; methods of multiscale analysis; wavelet transforms; time-frequency-scale analysis and fractal analysis. Applications in atmospheric, hydrologic, and geomorphologic processes.
prereq: CEGE 8506
Course Detail
Units: 4 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Fluid mechanics of microbiological processes in lakes, rivers, and wetlands. Small-scale fluid motion, nutrient uptake, growth kinetics, ecosystem metabolism, scaling, lab/field microstructure measurements.
prereq: CEGE 3502 or equiv
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Particle motion in fluids. Criteria for incipient motion. Formulations for bedload and suspended load. Bedform mechanics and hydraulic resistance relations. Channel stability, aggradation and degradation, alluvial stream morphology.
prereq: CEGE 3502 and CEGE 4501 or instr consent
Course Detail
Units: 4 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Land-atmosphere interactions and turbulent transport in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), the lowest part of the atmosphere. ABL development and dynamics. Turbulence, surface energy balance, spectral analysis, similarity theory. Flow over homogeneous and heterogeneous surfaces. Atmospheric stability, measurement, simulation of turbulent fluxes.
prereq: CSE or COAFES grad student or instr consent
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Description
Introduction to hydrologic transport and water quality simulation in natural water systems. Deterministic, process-oriented water quality model development. Mixed cell models, advection, turbulent diffusion/dispersion. Chemical/biological kinetics in water quality models. Application of water quality models to management problems.
prereq: One sem grad work or instr consent
Course Detail
Units: 3 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Lecture Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: Gradaute Student
Description
Background material required to participate in a stream restoration project. How to assimilate geologic, hydrologic, and ecological data at watershed and reach scales to plan a restoration project and evaluate/critique existing stream restoration projects.
Course Detail
Units: 2 units
Grading Basis: A-F or audit
Course Components: Laboratory Required
Enrollment Information
Enrollment Requirement: Grad Student, CEGE 8601
Description
Field experience, group design project. Students provide a stream restoration context for each other's elective coursework, complete critical assessments of stream restoration projects, and design a stream restoration site.
prereq: CEGE 8601, or EEB 8601, or ESCI 8601