Water Resources Engineering - Homepage Usask

1. Introduction to the basic problems of water quality management and the role of hydrologists in solving
these problems.
2. Systems approach to managing the aquatic ecosystem
- Elements of the management procedure:
- Setting of objectives (W.Q. criteria and standards)
- Monitoring networks, emission-immission (Objectives and tasks of designing monitoring networks,
the Hungarian case study)
- Exploring input-response, cause-and-effect, relationships, the importance of models as the basic tool
of systems approach.
- Basic options of water quality management (strategies: waste water treatment, non-point source
control, in-stream and in-lake treatment techniques; low flow augmentation, river training, lake
regulation);
- Role of process oriented field measurements;
- Economic, legal and administrative aspects (constrains)
3. Modelling as the basic tool of assessing the impacts on the aquatic system and identifying cause and
effect relationships
4. Basics of modelling river water quality *
- Basic theory
- Basic models of the oxygen household
- Advanced oxygen household models (Case studies on the application of oxygen household models
- Longitudinal dispersion models (accidental pollution models). Case studies with the Hungarian
Dyndis model
- Traversal mixing models (description of the waste water plume). Case study on the application of a
transversal mixing model
5. Basics of modelling lake ecosystems
- Experimental lake models (the OECD/Vollenveider approach)
- Simple nutrient budget models
- Some versions of dynamic lake ecosystem models (Case study: the Lake Balaton eutrophication
modelling and control)
- Briefing on the possibilities of coupled hydraulic and ecosystem models
6. The integrated catchment basin management approach and the non-point source (modelling) prob
- Basics of runoff-export pollution calculation methods
- Evaluation of hydrological and water quality data and the experimental (regression) approaches
- More advanced, hydrologically based NPS models,
- Basics of GIS based approaches (Case study on the modelling of point and non-point source loading
of selected chemicals in the Rhine River Basin; Case study on the GIS based point and non-point
source pollution modelling of the Zala River Basin, Hungary)
7. Summary, need for further knowledge, options of practical use
Remarks:
*- In teaching this subject the lecturer will utilise the respective Computer Aided Learning software
which has been prepared by himself and colleagues for the UNESCO/IHP programme.
Teaching will be rather "modelling" oriented as this lecturer believes that modelling is the basic means of
assessing the impact on aquatic systems and thus the cause and effect relationship, which is the key to finding
the appropriate solution.
There will be 10 types of exercises, each one with a given example and each with an approximate time demand
of 1-3 h. As many or most of these are supported by some model programmes (of the CAL, the computer aided
learning programme) the students will have the options of preparing some other examples for themselves.
Nevertheless the use of scientific hand calculators will be also required in each exercise.
Exercise 0 Checking the ability of students in calculating mass balances, the basis of modelling
Exercise 1. Analysis of a pollution case with the traditional BOD-DO model (using the CAL programme)
Exercise 2. Analysis of a pollution case with an expanded BOD-DO model (using the CAL programme)
Exercise 3. Analysis of a complex, multi source, pollution situation with the simple BOD model (with
scientific hand calculator)
28 / Course syllabi