Hydrology 101

At a loss when hydrologic engineers start throwing out certain industry terms, such as flood return interval, antecedent moisture condition, initial abstraction, etc? As a professional working with these technical individuals and their reports, it is crucial that you fully understand where they are coming from.

Join prolific speaker Dr. David T. Williams for this course exploring the concepts, terms, and analyses behind hydrology and the basis of hydrologic studies.

We will discuss the hydrologic cycle, common terms, frequency analysis (how do you come up with the 100-year storm?), sources and use of precipitation data, and developing hypothetical (synthetic) storms for use in designing flood control projects. Moving beyond the basics, we will delve into advanced topics and how the information gleaned therein is essential in order for hydraulic engineers to develop their designs. Such topics include hydrologic losses, determining runoff, developing a hydrograph, and routing the channel downstream.

Hydrology 101 Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course attendees should be able to:

Explain the fundamentals of the hydrologic cycle
Define the meaning of hydrologic terms and how they are used in hydrology
Use rainfall information to develop a flood hydrograph
Determine the hypothetical frequency (such as the 100-year storm) of rainfall events
Transform rainfall information into a runoff
Describe the procedures used to develop a hydrograph: its shape, volume, and peak discharge
Discern how hydrographs are developed for areas that do not have rainfall information
Demonstrate the procedures used to determine how the hydrograph changes as you track the flood downstream