Prospective Students

This course is targeted at three primary audiences:
  1. Graduate students in Watershed Sciences (particularly those pursuing a Geomorphology and Earth Surface Processes Specialization) who need a foundational understanding of instream hydraulics to compliment fluvial geomorphology and watershed hydrology.
  2. Graduate students in Fisheries or Ecology (stream ecology) with a strong interest in how streams function physically and seeking to understand abiotic-physical feedbacks in streams and how instream hydraulics control the occurrence of physical habitat for instream biota (focus will be primarily on fish).
  3. Graduate students in other programs on campus (e.g. Geology, Civil and/or Environmental Engineering) who seek an introduction to hydraulics that is focused on natural channel geometries.

Alternative and Complimentary Courses to Fluvial Hydraulics & Ecohydraulics

  • Mac McKee's Open Channel Hydraulics (CEE 5500/6500) - This is an excellent complimentary course. There is overlap on some of the material, but CEE 6500 focuses more on 1D hydraulics in simplified channels (e.g. trapezoidal and rectangular cross sections) with an emphasis on design problems.
  • Jack Schmidt's Fluvial Geomorphology (WATS 5151/6150) - This is an excellent introduction to fluvial geomorphology that by necessity covers a condensed subset of hydraulics. Students taking Fluvial Hydraulics as a follow up or precursor to Fluvial Geomorphology will find some minor overlap but the two courses build off each other. Students looking to take just one of the two courses, may find Fluvial Geomorphology has more breadth.
  • Gilberto Uroz's Fluid Mechanics (CEE 3500) - This undergraduate civil engineering course would be a standard part of any civil engineering curriculum and is almost always a prerequisite to any open channel flow or hydraulics course. Dr. Uroz has put all of his course materials, problem sets and problems up on this open courseware site,.

Follow Up Courses