BEE 4510 - Sustainable Water Resources System Design

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: BEE 4750, or permission of instructor.

S. Steinschneider.

This course provides a capstone experience in the design of multi-objective water resources systems. The course is designed to teach the fundamentals of planning and management as practiced in water resources engineering, and to simulate interdisciplinary project teams common in industry and government. The course takes a “systems” focus, including the identification and quantification of objectives that reflect the interests of multiple stakeholder groups; the development of alternative designs for water system management; and the utilization of a computational modeling framework to evaluate how those alternative designs define tradeoffs between objectives. We adopt a focus on sustainable water systems, taking into account both ecological impacts of water management and the potential threats of climate change on system performance. Students will explore these aspects of system design in the context of Lake Ontario, one of the largest regulated lakes in the world that is currently undergoing a major revision to the design of its management plan.

Outcome 1: Apply a structured approach to water resources planning.

Outcome 2: Evaluate system planning alternatives in modern programming languages.

Outcome 3: Design a sustainable management plan for a water resources system.

Outcome 4: Effectively communicate the design of a water resources plan, including its justification and the underlying process used in its development.