EESC 645 - Water and Watershed Resources

Units: 3
The science and practice of sustainable urban water and watershed resources management. Watershed and stream system identification, hydrology, assessment, and restoration. Municipal water systems and their management, water and wastewater treatment, water quality monitoring, storm water, water conservation, and supply reliability.

Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous, or Online-Synchronous.
Grading: A-F grading only.
Course Typically Offered: Variable Intermittently

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Identify and explain where our water supply comes from, how it gets to us, and how we use and dispose of it along with the historical precedents for these practices.
Identify and articulate the different qualities, values and uses of water - consumptive and non-consumptive, economic and environmental - and the differences and inequities in water supply across regions.
Calculate indices of water supply reliability and identify and explain the key components of an urban water management plan.
Describe techniques by which domestic, industrial and agricultural water users can conserve water and implement a water conservation and sustainability audit in a residential or workplace setting.
Identify watershed limits and quantify key watershed physical dimensions using field observations, topographic maps or remotely sensed information.
Describe the basic components and dynamics of watershed hydrology and the hydrologic cycle and the effects of spatial variability and changes in physical characteristics on runoff generation.
Recognize the many types and causes of point and non-point source pollution in different watershed settings and describe methods for their prevention.
Describe the main methods of streamflow measurement and calculate/plot hydrographs and stage-discharge relationships.
List different sources of water contamination, identify water quality variables and describe how they are affected by different contaminants.
Describe the process of water quality assessment and key factors for quality assurance and quality control of field samples.
Describe the components of urban watershed restoration programs and their objectives, including one or more practical case studies in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Direct a group project on a selected water resources and/or watershed management project and coordinate the production of a professional-grade final report.
Prepare a potential masters thesis proposal in the field of water water resources and/or watershed management and foundational literature review.