The course is concerned with effective use of water as a manageable natural resource. It begins with instruction on the tools required by water resource managers and engineers to make sound decisions in their field. The course assesses current needs for water and the structural (engineered) and non-structural approaches to meet these needs. Elements of engineering design and the design process are introduced. The bulk of the course is concerned with assessment of the impacts of various water resources development activities on the economic, socio-cultural and ecological sectors of the environment. Methods for conducting tradeoff analyses, to include the application of multi-attribute decision models, among the engineered and environmental aspects of projects are developed and applied in a term project. These real world term projects are conducted in student design teams. The course makes use of selected case studies of water resource projects. Visiting speakers represent the views of water resource professionals and a visit to a hydropower project provides practical experience in water resource planning and design.
