Unit name | Hydrological Engineering for Developing Countries |
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Unit code | CENGM0056 |
Credit points | 10 |
Level of study | M/7 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Rosolem |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
CENG31600 – Water Resources Project 3 CENG21300 – Hydraulics 2 |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Civil Engineering |
Faculty | Faculty of Engineering |
Aims: Water security is a key societal need in the developing world. In most of the developing world, overall precipitation amounts are low while precipitation variability is high, causing low security in water supply. Simultaneously, precipitation intensities are high during rainy seasons which often causes significant flooding. However, typically used approaches to estimating hydrologic design values, such as those needed to design reservoirs for water supply and levees for flood protection, rely on extensive observations of streamflow. Such methods are unsuitable for hydrologic engineering in the developing world. This course introduces to and trains students in the use of methods for hydrologic predictions in ungauged basins, including the use of remotely sensed data, to estimate design variables for use in data poor regions of the world.
Context: Human impacts on the hydrologic cycle continues to rise as a result of increased demands for energy, water, food, and living space from a growing population. Such impacts are visible, for instance, in changing patterns of floods and droughts due to human-induced climate change, in shrinking aquifer storages resulting from excessive pumping of groundwater, in significantly distorted river flow regimes due to the building of dams and through agricultural abstractions, and in altered groundwater recharge due to changes in land use through urbanization and deforestation. Despite their global implications, the most affected regions are expected to be in the developing countries, where current access to resources and adaptation/mitigation strategies for such hazards are incomplete in comparison to those from developed countries. Therefore, the role of engineers in such context has never been so important to ensure sustainability of natural resources under a rapidly changing world. However, one of the key issues all engineers face while working in the developing world is the scarcity or complete lack of supporting observations which are pivotal for hydrologic prediction. For this reason, engineers need to be creative and innovative to transfer their knowledge and understanding of hydrology from data-rich basins to regions where observations are not available. The recent development of remotely-sensed Earth Observation products has certainly helped engineers to overcome some of these limitations, but a clear understanding of hydrologic processes and their interactions with humans still rely on hydrologic analysis from comparison with regions where basin-scale observations are available.
Lectures (22 hours) with example/practical material and guided reading also provided.
100% Examination