Hydrology and Water Resources

Overview: Hydrology is a branch of geoscience concerned with the origin, distribution, movement, and properties of waters of the earth. This includes fluid flow and transport of contaminants in the subsurface environment. Past and present research focuses on a broad spectrum of hydrologic problems. These range from quantifying snow distribution and melt, rainfall and infiltration processes, floods, droughts, terminal lake responses, soil erosion, and groundwater/surface water exchanges. Additionally, modeling tools have been developed and/or applied to investigate stream water quality, groundwater contamination characterization and remediation, and complete watershed responses. Water Resources Engineering draws on principles from hydrology, fluid mechanics, hydraulics, environmental engineering, economics, ecology, political science, and other disciplines in the design and operation of projects and nonstructural methods for water resources planning and management. Research in this area focuses on simulation and optimization modeling and hydroinformatics to improve the planning, design, and operation of water systems over different spatial scales (e.g., individual users or transboundary river basins).