Hydrologic Modelling For Water Resources/Environmental Practitioners

Course Description  -  Winter/Spring2019

OBJECTIVES:          Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

1. Describe the major computational elements in a representative selection of deterministic hydrologic models, including both continuous and event models, covering the range in space and time aggregation from annual-time-interval lumped models to highly distributed models of small watersheds with time intervals of one hour or less (e.g. one minute).
2. Identify the physical quantities for which input data is required in the models described in (1) and give quantitative estimates of the range of values expected for each input quantity.
3. Identify and describe computational procedure, using state-of-the-art algorithms, for various processes included in a hydrologic model. It may include

1. Treatment of meteorological inputs (e.g. precipitation and air temperature).
2. Computation of infiltration and superficial water generation
3. Computation of watershed evapotranspiration.
4. Calculation of soil water storage changes in space and time
5. Computation of interception and depression storage.
6. Calculate snow accumulation, ablation (melt) and re-distribution
7. Calculation of contribution to ground water.
8. Computation of overland flow, reservoir and channel (flood) routing.

1. Make good initial estimates of key model input variables/parameters in the absence of calibration data.
2. Describe the procedure used to calibrate a watershed model and the criteria used to test its success.
3. Students will build a model of a sample watershed using representative hydrologic modelling software, and will learn how to calibrate and validate it, run sensitivity tests, and apply it for a practical application.

Media

Taxonomy

• Hydrological Modelling
• Sustainable Water Resource Management
• Hydrology
• Hydrologist
• Flood prediction
• Hydrological Modelling
• Water Resources Management
• Hydrological modelling of climate change