EARS 16 Hydrology and Water Resources
This course explores both the physical and technical dimensions of the Earth's surface water resources and water resource management to demonstrate that ensuring sustainable water resources requires not only a firm understanding of the physical-chemical characteristics of water, but also of its social arena. Focus is given to the array of environmental problems resulting from human impacts on water resources and contextualizes them both in terms of their physical underpinnings and in terms of social requirements driving the development of technical analyses. Topics include floods, droughts, domestic water supply, dams and dam removal, habitat degradation, snowmaking, and climate change. Weekly field studies of local streams and lakes are used to introduce hydrological field methods and to illustrate fundamental principles and phenomena. Field studies are complemented with technical analyses of water resources.