Welcome to Fundamentals of Hydrology!

(Summer 2022)

Description:

Get familiar with the basic concepts of the science of water. Through this class you will acquire the conceptual and practical tools necessary to become effective water resources professionals in a rapidly changing world.

Outcomes:

At the end of this class you will be able to:

• Perform basic exploratory analysis of water cycle environment in an open-source programming interface.
• Conduct basic regression analysis of water quality variables in watersheds with contrasting land uses.
• Present and communicate technical and scientific concepts related to hydrology to non-technical audiences.

Learning Objectives:

• Knowledge of the techniques for measuring and analyzing hydrologic and water quality data.
• An understanding of the processes involved in the hydrologic regime and its ecological implications.
• An understanding of statistical predictive models applied in hydrology and water quality analysis.
• Cultivate an appreciation for the role of water in linking multiple systems in the landscape.
• Become familiar with current scientific paradigms guiding cutting-edge research in hydrology.

Text:

Davie, T. & N. W. Quinn. 2019. Fundamentals of Hydrology. 3rd. Edition. Routledge Fundamentals of Physical Geography. 285 p.

Tentative schedule (Expected | Delivered)

WEEK 1

• June 21 - Introduction and prep. work for data analyses
• June 22 - Streamflow (Notebook 0)
• June 23 - Precipitation (Streamflow)
• June 24 - Water quality I: Total Suspended Solids (Notebook 1)

  WEEK 2

• June 28 - Water quality II: Nutrients (Precipitation)
• June 29 - Hydrological processes I: Sediment transport (Notebook 2)
• June 30 - Hydrological processes II: Nutrient export (Sediment transport)
• July 01 - Predicting stream water quality (Nutrient export)

  WEEK 3

• July 4-9 - Field trip (Dr. Todd Jarvis)

  WEEK 4

• July 12 - Paper discussion (Predicting stream water quality)
• July 13 - Student presentations (*Paper discussion)
• July 14 - Student presentations I
• July 15 - Student presentations II, including Final project presentation

Our Notebooks

Most of our data exploration and analysis will be done in the RStudio environment using R Notebooks. I will provide a Notebook for each session, e.g., streamflow, precipitation, water quality, etc. Most of our assignments will be connected to these Notebooks. The downloable versions below are always up to date.

• Notebook_0
• Notebook_1
• Notebook_2
• Precipitation dataset
• Notebook_3
• Erosion and Sediment Transport MURAL
• Notebook_4

How to access the content of these notebooks:

1. Click on the link to the notebook above
2. Once at the corresponding page click on the icon “Copy raw contents” (see below)

1. Open a new notebook in RStudio and paste the content there. Save this file as dd-mm-yy_notebook_n_last,. For example to have the latest version of Notebook_1 after a class session on June 23, 2022. You would save the file as 23_06_22_notebook_1_last

Notebook example from students

Although we do most of our class work in RStudio, students render and submitt their homework as word documents to facilitate edition and comments. This is one of many examples

Paper discussion

For our paper discussion we will read the article by Battin (2009); The Boundless Carbon Cycle. You can download the paper through OSU library. You can also download a copy from the class repository here

Please note that according to our schedule we will have this discussion on Wednesday July 13

Oral presentations!

Well the big moment is here! We entered in final mode for class presentations. Please help your classmates filling this grading form (make sure to make several copies, so you have a form for each of them).