Interdisciplinary Surface Water Quality Modeling Course
2006 Teaching Initiation Award Report
Investigators
Bethany Neilson—Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental
Engineering
Nancy Mesner—Associate Professor, Watershed Sciences; Associate Dean, College of
Natural Resources
Summary
The Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program of the Clean Water Act requires that
states identify impaired water bodies and determine how to reallocated
pollutant loads in order to meet instream water quality standards in rivers,
lakes, reservoirs, and estuaries. In most casers, this reallocation of loads
requires water quality modeling. Due to its inherent interdisiplinary nature,
the TMDL program and its requires have highlighted weaknesses in the ability of
water-related disciplines to communicate and determine how to address water
quality impairments. Additional, the TMDL program has shown that the expertise
in water quality modeling is insufficient in the regulatory and consulting
communities becuse universities are not producing enough students with the
necessary water quality modeling skills.
The purpose of this project is to develop a new interdisciplinary course, CEE
6930/WATS 6900, "Surface Water Quality Modeling" that: 1) will be complimentary
to AWER 6530 by building on its concepts; 2) will provide students wit hthe
necessary fundamental concepts associated with water quality modeling; 3) will
prsent data requirements for modeling and the corresponding data collection
approaches; 4) teach students how to apply some existing water quality models;
and 5) teach students how information from #1-4 is used to make wate quality
related desisions i nthe context of the TMDL program. The most important part
of this course is the overarching emphasis of how concepts fit into the TMDL
program and its requirements.
A flyer introducing this new class and
the syllabus for the class have been
developed and the resulitng class is being taught during the Spring of 2008.
Contact Information
Bethany Neilson
bethany.neilson‹at›usu.edu
Nancy Mesner
nancy.mesner‹at›usu.edu