Tucson, Arizona

Department of Hydrology and Water Resources

The place to study water.

In the desert, water is everything. That is why the University of Arizona established a separate program in Hydrology and Water Resources in 1961. In fact, we are the only university in the nation with a department dedicated solely to hydrology and water resources. Because water is not just a sideline here, graduate students in our department are important to us and enjoy the full attention of our internationally recognized faculty.

The University of Arizona has it all. 

The University of Arizona is located in a major southwestern city, surrounded by millions of acres of open mountains and desert. It combines the amenities of a metropolitan area and the recreational opportunities common to the wide-open West - hiking in the mountains and desert or swimming in warm outdoor pools.

This spectacular natural setting draws students from all parts of the world, who enjoy the university’s year-long program of cultural events and entertainment.

The warm climate and casual Western lifestyle combine with the high-quality academic environment to provide one of the most pleasant atmospheres for higher education found anywhere in the nation.

Tucson is a center for Western art and offers many cultural attractions, ranging from fine symphony orchestras, dance, and opera, to an exciting and diverse theater scene. Tucson’s Native American and Hispanic heritages enrich the culture of the community.

The State is our biggest laboratory.

Arizona’s diverse climate, from deserts to alpine forests, provides a broad range of hydrologic phenomena to study. In the state’s arid regions many communities rely solely on ground water, while other communities depend on many reservoirs and large public-works projects built to bring water from the mountains to the desert.

Our students study with the faculty members who work on these projects, and they learn first-hand about systems analysis, reservoir operations and the politics of water management.

Since Arizona’s violent summer storms cause flash flooding in many areas, this is a focus of some of our research programs. Other researchers are studying climate change. Because the desert is a fragile environment to begin with, our researchers and graduate students are the first to observe the effects of climate change in projects conducted in the arid Southwest.

We attract students with diverse backgrounds.

While most of our students have undergraduate degrees in the earth sciences and engineering, we have a significant number who have majored in other sciences, as well as liberal arts and the social sciences. After completing basic course work in science and mathematics, those with non-technical degrees often focus their work in areas of water policy and management. All students complete a core curriculum of technical courses in addition to advanced courses in their chosen areas of emphasis.

The department offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in hydrology with areas of emphasis in Subsurface Hydrology, Surface-water Hydrology, Water Quality and Chemistry, and Water Resources. The department also offers the Masters of Engineering degree for practicing professionals.

For the past three decades, the University of Arizona has had the nation’s only academic department dedicated solely to hydrology and water resources. This department is ready to meet the challenges of this decade and beyond...

The curriculum is first-class

The department offers the Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees with a major in Hydrology. The department also participates in the College of Engineering and Mines' Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) program.*

The M.S. program is designed to be completed in two years of full-time study. All students master a common core of work in ground water, surface hydrology, water quality, and water policy, planning, and management. Feedback from former students indicates that the depth of knowledge gained through our broadly based curriculum prepares them to work on a wide range of problems.

Graduate students in hydrology and water resources may also take field and laboratory courses that give them hands-on experience with experiments in water chemistry, stream-flow gauging, and water-quality monitoring.

By writing a thesis, students learn how to prepare reports and plan research. They conduct a research program from inception to implementation to completion.

Our Ph.D. program is designed for highly motivated students who may pursue teaching, research or other technical careers where both breadth and depth of knowledge are important. Although our Ph.D. students come from diverse backgrounds, most have completed an M.S. program in hydrology, water resources, or a closely related field.

We have an exciting program of sponsored research
Graduate students in our department employ the latest advances in water science and technology to attack water problems important to the nation and the world. Our diverse research interests include projects that study flow through fractured rocks, which is of vital interest at nuclear-waste disposal and toxic-chemical sites.

Other projects include work by several researchers on NASA’s Earth Observing System. The project is an extensive network of satellite observation platforms that will be launched beginning in July 1999 to gather data on soil moisture, evapotranspiration, acid rain and snow, aerosols, water vapor, ozone, desertification, and other phenomena to provide a better understanding of Earth systems on a global scale.

Some of our faculty members also are part of the research effort on the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System. This program, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will create, install and manage the world’s most sophisticated weather- and flood-forecasting systems.

Subsurface Hydrology Topics

Hydrogeology:
Geophysical methods, groundwater in geotechnical problems, field studies, isotopes as natural tracers, ground-water dating, chemical evolution of waters, rock-water interactions.

Ground-water modeling:
Saturated and unsaturated flow, stochastic and numerical methods, parameter estimation, contaminant transport.

Unsaturated media:
Fractured rock, multiphase flow and transport, field and laboratory experiments, monitoring techniques, contaminant-remediation measures.

Integrated physical-economic modeling:
Mathematical programming and simulation, conjunctive use of ground and surface waters, network design.

Surface-water Hydrology Topics
Precipitation-runoff modeling:
Lumped- and distributed-parameter models, physically based approaches, calibration and parameter estimation, scale issues; modeling of snowmelt, urban runoff, ungauged watersheds, and precipitation.

Flood forecasting:
Flash floods, flood routing, probabilistic methods, advanced weather systems.

Stochastic hydrology:
Time-series analysis, flood and drought frequency, Bayesian analysis.

Remote sensing:
Arid-region hydrology, water and energy budgets, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, snow cover.

Hydrometeorology and climatology:
Observing, understanding and modeling of surface-atmosphere exchanges. Evapotranspiration of riparian systems, assimilation of remotely sensed surface data in models, mesoscale coupled models, monsoon prediction studies.

Environmental Hydrology Topics
Ground-water chemistry:
Reaction pathways, regional geochemistry, trace metals, analytical methods, mineral weathering, isotopic analysis.

Contaminant transport:
Multi-phase transport, colloid transport, sorption phenomena, hazardous waste, laboratory and field studies, mathematical modeling.

Water Quality and Chemistry:
Snow and ice chemistry, hydrochemical modeling, nucleation and particle growth, coagulation in natural waters, field studies.

Snow and Ice:
Greenland and Antarctic ice cores, paleoclimate reconstruction, seasonal snow covers, snow chemistry.

Watershed Studies:
Integrated physical-chemical modeling, biogeochemistry of alpine catchments, surface water and ground-water interactions.

Water Resources Topics
Risk Analysis:
Information needs, flood-forecasting response, non-economic benefits, uncertainty, hazard identification and ranking, management alternatives, benefits of reducing risk.

Water-resources systems:
Multi-objective planning, reservoir systems operation, mathematical and goal programming, water-resource economics, control theory, operational hydrology, surface/subsurface water-quality modeling, water-conflict analysis.

Legal and institutional issues:
Jurisdictional disputes, decision-making structures, water rights, water-quality planning, international water development, water law, expert systems.

Our students are in demand
The high quality of our program, the reputations of our faculty members and the rich course offerings combine to give our graduates an edge in the job market. Our graduate students often receive several high-paying offers for employment when they leave school.

Graduates of our program who emphasize water resources are prepared for positions in technical and administrative fields involving policy, planning and management for both water allocation and water-quality control.

Graduates of our program who emphasize the more physical aspects of hydrology analyze ground water contamination and devise strategies for cleanup. They also plan water development in the United States and other countries, and they address a wide range of water quantity and quality problems in streams, rivers, and lakes. In fact, anywhere that water problems need to be solved or prevented, our students find jobs.

Facilities and support
The department has 15 full-time faculty and more than 20 affiliated scientists and technical staff members. Our offices and laboratories are centrally located on campus, and additional space is available for special projects and field work. Our laboratory space includes water-chemistry teaching and research laboratories, areas for subsurface-hydrology and unsaturated-zone research, and a separate analytical-chemistry laboratory. The department has computer laboratories with extensive microcomputer facilities for both teaching and research. Access to super computers on and off campus also is provided.

In addition, our affiliations with other programs such as geosciences, systems engineering, soil science, and environmental engineering provide additional laboratory and teaching facilities. The program is linked with related programs in the areas of public administration and policy, and renewable natural resources. We also have close ties with the Udall Center for Public Policy Studies.

The department’s close ties with several federal water related agencies also provide additional resources and opportunities.

Applications and Information

Terrie Thompson
Department of Hydrology and Water Resources
University of Arizona
P.O. Box 210011
Tucson, Arizona
85721-0011

Telephone: 520-621-3131

URL: www.hwr.arizona.edu

Interested students also may write directly to faculty members concerning research programs and assistantship support. A list of faculty and their research interests is available.
Questions? Contact Terrie Thompson