Dealing with the natural resources of our environment, both in managementcapacities for present needs and safety and in planning for the future availableresources, is the responsibility of water resource engineers. Working in thefields of Hydrology and Hydraulics, water resource engineers help to guaranteethe availability and quality of public water supplies and the timely handling ofexcess water, in any of its forms. Water resource engineering includes theanalysis of water supply, treatment and storage, watershed management, whichincludes surface and ground water hydrology and hydrogeology, urban / ruralrainfall and run-off analyses, and stormwater management and master drainageplans.
The last function of water resource engineering is wastewater treatmentand disposal, which includes sewage collection, treatment and disposal systems,sanitary sewer systems construction, inspection and rehabilitation, and sewagepumping stations collection, storage and treatment of urban run-off. Waterresource engineering mainly falls in the fields of Hydrology and Hydraulics.Hydrology is the study of the sources and natural flows of water, whether it beunderground, watershed runoff, snowpack, etc. The practice in this field is theplanning and management of the available resources, whatever their form.Hydraulics is the study of both confined and unconfined fluid flow phenomena,and the designing of engineered systems to utilize such fluid properties ashead, pressure, and velocity.
Hydrological research in its widest sensecomprises the circulation of water in nature under the influence of climaticvariability and of man's actions concerning the exploitation and control of thewater resources. A quantitative model description of the circulation of water iscentral as a background for the analysis of groundwater contamination,environmental effects of groundwater recovery, soil erosion, flooding, drought,and the interaction of areal use and water resources. Hydrology can be dividedinto two main areas: groundwater hydrology and surface water hydrology.Groundwater hydrology includes the flow and transport processes in saturated andunsaturated soil, including laboratory experiments and field investigationsdescribing the exhaustive physical or chemical processes and the development ofmathematical or numerical model systems. The focus of groundwater hydrology isespecially upon the effect of heterogeneities in the subsurface (for examplestone, clay or sand lenses and macropores), dispersion and solution of oilcontamination in soil, coupling between chemical processes and transport, anddefinition of model parameters by optimization and validation of models. Aprevailing part of the research resources will also in the future beconcentrated on groundwater research with the main theme being flow andtransport modeling in heterogeneous aquifers including scale-dependent modeldescription, geochemical modeling, inverse modeling, and modeling of multi-phasetransport (oil contamination).
New, important areas are transport of pesticides,estimation of model uncertainties, and optimization of remediation initiativesat point sources. On the other hand, surface water hydrology includes theplanning, development, and management of the water resources. It focuses on theunderstanding and model description of the global, regional, and localinteraction between atmosphere, soil, water, and vegetation, including thechange of precipitation to evaporation, the creation and run-off of groundwater.Research in water resources and hydraulic engineering includes problems in thehydrodynamic modeling of free surface flows, the dynamics of ice formation andtransport in rivers and oceans, remote sensing of sea ice dynamics, thespreading of oil and other chemical spills, modeling deep water oil/gas jets andplumes, and mathematical modeling of oil spills on rivers and oceans.
Hydraulicengineering also deals with fluid statics, fluid dynamics, pipe flow, openchannel flow, the design of various hydraulic structures, measurements, andmodel studies. The following are water resources engineering case studies. WaterQuality Modeling of Lake West Point West Point Reservoir, on the ChattahoocheeRiver downstream of metro Atlanta, is subject to algal production and blooms dueto excessive nutrient loadings that need to be evaluated and controlled. The 2Dhydrodynamic and water quality model CE-QUAL-W2 is being calibrated and appliedto West Point Reservoir with the goal of assisting Georgia EPD in developingtotal Maximum Daily Loadings (TMDL's) of nutrients in order to meet waterquality standards in the reservoir. The effect of using different temporalscales for model inputs is being investigated, and the impact of reducedphosphorus loading on reservoir water quality will be evaluated over amulti-year period. Use of Satellite Information in Modeling Runoff, Erosion, andNon-point Source Pollution for Large Watersheds This project focuses onassessing the value of using satellite sensed weather and land cover/land usefor the management of large watersheds (*1000 km 2).
The project includes fourmajor components: (1) estimation of rain using satellite images, (2) runoffmodeling using distributed watershed models, (3) erosion modeling and sedimenttransport, and (4) modeling of non point source pollution loads. Case studieswill be conducted for the Southeastern US and the Lake Victoria Basin. Bibliographyhttp://vig.prenhall.com/acadbook/0,2581,0131766031,00.html http://www.ce.gatech.edu/~water/research.html#efm11http://cu.clarkson.edu/education/engineering/cee/NavMenu/Graduate/Areasofstudy/HydraulicsWR.htmhttp://www.isva.dtu.dk/research.htm#hydrology http://www.civil.utah.edu/~blaser/MM_project/water/index.htmlhttp://www.gamsby.com/water.htm
