Hydrology is both about learning concepts and physical principles as well as learning techniques that can be used to understand a particular phenomena. In practice, hydrologists have to quantify the rates at which water is exchanged between the atmosphere, the ground and the ocean, and this often involves manipulating data and solving sets of equations. As you'll soon see, it's fairly easy to lose sight of the conceptual part of the problem once you enter into the realm of techniques. Thus, my goal in this course is to give you a balanced view of hydrology - one that includes both a description of the basic processes as well as a coherent presentation of the theories and techniques that are used. A 2-hour lab session will be held every Tuesday.
Attendance is mandatory and please be on time.
We may take a field trip depending on people's interests and schedules, but the majority of the labs will be techniques oriented. Hydrologists use a variety of techniques that require skills in statistics, mathematics, remote sensing, cartography, computers, and in my case, rafting and surveying. We won't go into great depth in developing skills in all of these areas, but my goal in the lab portion of this course is to give you a basic understanding of these skills and show you how to apply them to specific hydrologic problems. The exams will cover material from the lectures and your textbook. Test questions will be short answer and essay.