Geospatial Applications in Water Resources & Aquatic Ecosystems

Catalog description

This course is designed to expose students to different geospatial analysis applications in water resources. It will emphasize geospatial data acquisition of hydrologic features, spatial analysis, and data representation. Students will learn through projects, lectures and hands-on computer lab exercises to investigate and solve water resource issues. Practical applications will focus on watershed and drainage network delineation, assessment of aquatic ecosystems, and surface generation methods using spatial hydrology models. Students who successfully complete GEOG 453 will be able to manage, analyze, and represent geospatial data by using spatial analysis software and have a vision of hydrological applications used in land use planning and watershed management. Specific objectives include: 1. Review of data sources and structure in hydrology: georeferenced coordinate systems, datum and scale, map projections, and data acquisition and representation. 2. Use ditial terrain models to route surface runoff and derive watershed and stream networks. 3. Assess aquatic ecosystems and riparian buffers based on landscape analysis and other sources of hydrologic modeling parameters. 4. Model continuous surfaces from point to raster data structure using interpolation techniques. 5. Practice real-world resource problems in both urban and rural areas by integrating hydrologic calculations and automated geospatial procedures.