Water resources engineering at the UWRL incorporates principles of hydrology, fluid mechanics, hydraulics, environmental engineering, economics, ecology, political science, and other disciplines in water resources management research. Our multi-disciplinary faculty and students also develop new ways to model natural processes, providing tools to support human decision making regarding efficiency, safety, and economic tradeoffs in the management of scarce water resources.
Department Expertise
- Contaminant Hydrogeology
- Cyberinformatics & Cyberinfrastructure
- Decision Support Systems
- Ecohydraulics
- Evapotranspiration
- Instream Flow
- Irrigation/Drainage
- Machine Learning & Big Data
- Remote Sensing Applications
- Reservoir & River Restoration & Management
- River Basin & Wetlands Management
- Soil Moisture
- Stormwater Management
- Surface/Subsurface Hydrology
- Surface and Groundwater Quantity/Quality Management
- Water Resources Systems Engineering
Highlighted Projects
Service and Outreach
Board and Committee Memberships
- Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR)—(delegate, Bethany Neilson)
- American Geophysical Union—(Water Quality Technical Committee member, Bethany Neilson; Publications Committee member, David Tarboton)
- American Society of Civil Engineers—(Environmental Water Resources Systems Committee, Chair, David Rosenberg; Excellence in Systems Analysis Teaching and Communications, Chair, David Rosenberg)
- American Water Resources Association—(Utah Chapter, board member, David Rosenberg)
- Logan River Task Force—(members: David Rosenberg, Jeffery Horsburgh)
- NOAA National Water Center—(Community Advisory Committee for Water Predicition member, David Tarboton)
- Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR)—(delegate, Bethany Neilson)
- Utah Air Quality Board—(member, Randy Martin)
- Utah State Commission for Certification for Water Treatment System Operators—(member, David Stevens)
- Utah State University, Ecology Center—(associate, Bethany Neilson)
- Engineers Without Borders: EWB-USA supports community-driven development programs worldwide collaborating with local partners to design and implement sustainable engineering projects and creating transformative experiences and responsible leaders.
- Water Initiative: Utah State University supports a broad community of students and faculty across six colleges engaged in water education, research, and outreach. The Utah State Water Initiative works to facilitate collaborative research and to foster a collegial interdisciplinary community of water scholars.
Water Resources Engineering Education
Faculty within the Water Division have joint appointments with the Utah Water Research Laboratory and with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at USU. The academic curriculum supporting research is one of the most comprehensive offered in the United States.
Elements of ongoing research projects are routinely and effectively incorporated into the courses offered. The program combines research, training, and experience to understand water issues and water resources management challenges in the State of Utah, the United States, and the world.
Civil & Environmental Engineering Hydrology & Water Resources