System Requirements for Viewing this Course

INSTRUCTOR:   David T. Williams, Ph.D., P.E., PH, CFM, D.WRE, F.ASCE, F.EWRI

Sponsored by ASCE Continuing Education and the Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI).

Purpose and Background

At a loss when hydrologists and hydrologic engineers start throwing out fancy terms like flood return interval, antecedent moisture condition, initial abstraction, etc.? As a professional working with these technical individuals and their reports, it is essential that you fully understand where they are coming from so that you can be a productive participant in a project with a hydrologic component. This webinar explores the concepts, terms, and analyses behind hydrology, and the basis of the analyses that goes into hydrologic studies. It teaches you how to find sources for hydrologic data and how to read the data from hydrographs.

Primary Discussion Topics

• Relationship of rainfall to runoff
• Important hydrologic terms and their relationship to physical processes
• Finding sources of hydrologic data
• Determining hydrograph shapes and peaks with minimal data

Learning Outcomes

• Discuss the fundamentals of the hydrologic cycle
• Describe the important types of water losses into the soil
• Explain how rainfall information is used to develop a flood hydrograph
• Demonstrate how hydrologists determine the hypothetical frequency (such as the 100 year storm) of rainfall events
• Summarize how hydrographs are developed for areas that do not have rainfall information

Webinar Benefits

• Be able to discuss hydrologic terms and phenomena with other members of the project
• Understand how hydrology is used for hydraulic studies
• Learn about the uncertainties in hydrology
• Find out how the water goes from rainfall to the river
• Discover the data sources used in hydrologic studies