This course is a client-based land analysis and site planning project. The primary focus of the course changes from year to year. This year the focus is on Japan's New Towns. Students will review land inventory, analysis, and planning of sites and the infrastructure systems that serve them.ĺĘThey willĺĘalso examine spatial organization of uses, parcelization, design of roadways, grading, utility systems, stormwater runoff, parking, traffic and off-site impacts, as well as landscaping. LecturesĺĘwill coverĺĘanalytical techniques and examples of good site-planning practice. Requirements include a series of Assignments and Labs and a client-based project.

Engineers work in many fields associated with precipitation. Engineers study glaciers to better understand their dates of formation and current demise. They deal with issues of pollution transport and water yield, and they monitor reservoirs and dams to prevent flooding.

The course discusses several Geopgraphical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) tools relevant for analysis of (problems in and aspects of) water systems. Within the course, several applications are introduced. These applications include GIS tools to determine mapping of surface water systems (catchment delineation, reservoirs and canal systems). The RS tools include determination of evaporation and soil moisture patterns, and measurement of water levels in surface water systems. In exercises and lectures, different tools and applications are offered. For each application, assignments are given to allow students to acquire relevant skills. The course structure combines assignments and introductory lectures. Each week participants work on one assignment. These assignments are discussed in the next lecture and graded. Each week a new assignment is introduced, together with supporting materials (an article discussing the relevant application) and lectures (introducing theoretical issues). The study material of the course consists of a study guide, assignments, lecture material and articles. The final mark is the average of the grades of the individual assignments.

A great variety of processes affect the surface of the Earth. Topics to be covered are production and movement of surficial materials; soils and soil erosion; precipitation; streams and lakes; groundwater flow; glaciers and their deposits. The course combines aspects of geology, climatology, hydrology, and soil science to present a coherent introduction to the surface of the Earth, with emphasis on both fundamental concepts and practical applications, as a basis for understanding and intelligent management of the Earth's physical and chemical environment.

Students are introduced to superhydrophobic surfaces and the "lotus effect." Water spilled on a superhydrophobic surface does not wet the surface, but simply rolls off. Additionally, as water moves across the superhydrophobic surface, it picks up and carries away any foreign material, such as dust or dirt. Students learn how plants create and use superhydrophobic surfaces in nature and how engineers have created human-made products that mimic the properties of these natural surfaces. They also learn about the tendency of all superhydrophobic surfaces to develop water droplets that do not roll off the surface but become "pinned" under certain conditions, such as water droplets formed from condensation. They see how the introduction of mechanical energy can "unpin" these water droplets and restore the desirable properties of the superhydrophobic surface.

Surface tension accounts for many of the interesting properties we associate with water. By learning about surface tension and adhesive forces, students learn why liquid jets of water break into droplets rather than staying in a continuous stream. Through hands-on activities, students learn how the combination of adhesive forces and cohesive forces cause capillary motion. They study different effects of capillary motion and use capillary motion to measure surface tension. Students explore the phenomena of wetting and hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces and see how water's behavior changes when a surface is treated with different coatings. A lotus leaf is a natural example of a superhydrophobic surface, with its water-repellent, self-cleaning characteristics. Students examine the lotus effect on natural leaves and human-made superhydrophobic surfaces, and explore how the lotus leaf repels dewy water through vibration. See the Unit Overview section for details on each lesson in this unit.

Students are introduced to the basic biology behind Pacific salmon migration and the many engineered Columbia River dam structures that aid in their passage through the river's hydroelectric dams. Students apply what they learn about the salmon life cycle as they think of devices and modifications that might be implemented at dams to aid in the natural cycle of fish migration, and as they make (hypothetical) Splash Engineering presentations about their proposed fish mitigation solutions for Birdseye River's dam in Thirsty County.

The Tippy Tap hand-washing station is an inexpensive and effective device used extensively in the developing world. One shortcoming of the homemade device is that it must be manually refilled with water and therefore is of limited use in high-traffic areas. In this activity, student teams design, prototype and test piping systems to transport water from a storage tank to an existing Tippy Tap hand-washing station, thereby creating a more efficient hand-washing station. Through this example service-learning engineering project, students learn basic fluid dynamic principles that are needed for creating efficient piping systems.

This class serves as an introduction to mass transport in environmental flows, with emphasis given to river and lake systems. The class will cover the derivation and solutions to the differential form of mass conservation equations. Class topics to be covered will include: molecular and turbulent diffusion, boundary layers, dissolution, bed-water exchange, air-water exchange and particle transport.

Groundwater is one of the largest sources of drinking water, so environmental engineers need to understand groundwater flow in order to tap into this important resource. Environmental engineers also study groundwater to predict where pollution from the surface may end up. In this lesson, students will learn how water flows through the ground, what an aquifer is and what soil properties are used to predict groundwater flow.

The lectures will discuss characteristics of urban water flows, hydraulics, hydrology and how to apply knowledge of these phenomena to the design and analysis of urban water systems. Integration of various scientific disciplines and technological and practical approaches is a central theme in this course.

Students will design an urban drainage system for a real case in the Netherlands or abroad using the Rational Method. They will use this design as input for a hydrodynamic computer model and perform model calculations for various conditions to check the performance of the designed system and improve where needed. They will prepare a written report of their data, design choices and results and present main results in a plenary session that concludes the lecture series.

Engineers design and implement many creative techniques for managing stormwater at its sources in order to improve and restore the hydrology and water quality of developed sites to pre-development conditions. Through the two lessons in this unit, students are introduced to green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, including green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopies, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. Student teams take on the role of stormwater engineers through five associated activities. They first model the water cycle, and then measure transpiration rates and compare native plant species. They investigate the differences in infiltration rates and storage capacities between several types of planting media before designing their own media mixes to meet design criteria. Then they design and test their own pervious pavement mix combinations. In the culminating activity, teams bring together all the concepts as well as many of the materials from the previous activities in order to create and install personal rain gardens. The unit prepares the students and teachers to take on the design and installation of bigger rain garden projects to manage stormwater at their school campuses, homes and communities.

Students use a thermal process approach to design, build and test a small-scale desalination plant that is capable of significantly removing the salt content from a saltwater solution. Students use a saltwater circuit to test the efficiency of their model desalination plant and learn how the water cycle is the basis for the thermal processes that drive their desalination plant.

Students are asked to design methods to filter water using ordinary materials, while also considering their designs' material and cost efficiencies. They learn about the importance of water and its role in our everyday lives. They come to understand what must occur each day so that they can have clean water.

Emphasis on mathematical models for predicting distribution and fate of effluents discharged into lakes, reservoirs, rivers, estuaries, and oceans. Focuses on formulation and structure of models as well as analytical and simple numerical solution techniques. Role of element cycles, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus, as water quality indicators. Offshore outfalls and diffusion. Salinity intrusion in estuaries. Thermal stratification, eutrophication, and sedimentation processes in lakes and reservoirs.

Survey of optimization methods for management of water resources. Linear, integer, nonlinear, and dynamic programming illustrated with case studies. Applications include reservoir and irrigation development, conjunctive use of surface and groundwater, capacity expansion, and sustainable resource development. This subject is concerned with quantitative methods for analyzing large-scale water resource problems. Topics covered include the design and management of facilities for river basin development, flood control, water supply, groundwater remediation, and other activities related to water resources. Simulation models and optimization methods are often used to support analyses of water resource problems. In this subject we will be constructing simulation models with the MATLABĺ¨ programming language and solving numerical optimization problems with the GAMS optimization package.

Students learn about floods, discovering that different types of floods occur from different water sources, but primarily from heavy rainfall. While floods occur naturally and have benefits such as creating fertile farmland, students learn that with the increase in human population in flood-prone areas, floods are become increasingly problematic. Both natural and manmade factors contribute to floods. Students learn what makes floods dangerous and what engineers design to predict, control and survive floods.

An introduction to chemical oceanography. Reservoir models and residence time. Major ion composition of seawater. Inputs to and outputs from the ocean via rivers, the atmosphere, and the sea floor. Biogeochemical cycling within the oceanic water column and sediments, emphasizing the roles played by the formation, transport, and alteration of oceanic particles and the effects that these processes have on seawater composition. Cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, and sulfur. Uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the ocean. Material presented through lectures and student-led presentation and discussion of recent papers.

Students learn about the water cycle and its key components. First, they learn about the concept of a watershed and why it is important in the context of engineering hydrology. Then they learn how we can use the theory of conservation of mass to estimate the amount of water that enters a watershed (precipitation, groundwater flowing in) and exits a watershed (evaporation, runoff, groundwater out). Finally, students learn about runoff and how we visualize runoff in the form of hydrographs.

In this scenario-based activity, students design ways to either clean a water source or find a new water source, depending on given hypothetical family scenarios. They act as engineers to draw and write about what they could do to provide water to a community facing a water crisis. They also learn the basic steps of the engineering design process.