HYDROLOGY

The course belong to the "Natural capital and ecosystem services" curriculum and aims at providing core hydrologic concepts to evaluate, manage and model superficial and subsuperficial (groundwater) water resources.
The course deals with the components of the hydrologic cycle including processes of precipitation, evaporation, transpiration, infiltration, ground-water flow, surface runoff and streamflow. Students learn about each physical hydrologic process, and then are introduced to both field and modeling methods to measure and estimate rates of each process and how the results are applied in real-world situations for the management and evaluation of water resources. Exercises include problem-solving activities, data analysis.

- Define, explain and correctly use terms and concepts used to describe basic physical hydrologic processes including evaporation, transpiration, precipitation, infiltration, ground-water flow and surface runoff;
- Explain the hydrologic cycle and the ways that humans impact and interact with it;
- Solve basic hydrologic problems to estimate the magnitude and frequency of hydrologic events;
- Use basic accepted hydrologic modeling to quantitatively measure and estimate the role of physical processes in the hydrologic cycle;
- Evaluate flood risk;
- Evaluate water resource management problems with awareness of the interdisciplinary nature of water resource management and decision-making;
- Read hydrologic research publications critically and discuss your thoughts;
- Write sound and clear exercise reports.

Calculus, including ordinary differential equations of degree one.
Basic concepts of fluid mechanics: pressure, hydrostatic pressure, energy conservation in fluids (Bernoulli's equation).

- Introduction. Hydrologic cycle. Hydrologic processes.
- Probability and statistics in hydrology. Return Period. Frequency analysis, risk.
- Precipitation: Types, variability, characterization. Evaporation. Infiltration.
- Surface hydrology: runoff and streamflow. Rainfall excess. Hydrologic response.
- Surface hydrology: Reservoir and streamflow routing.
- Subsurface hydrology: saturated flow in aquifers
- Floods controls and management.
- Fluvial ecosystems. Minimum and Environmental flow.

Exercise Sessions (in MatLab + Q-gis):
- Compute intensity-duration-frequency curve.
- Hydrologic model.
- River network extraction through digital terrain model analysis.

Course material provided through the moodle online learning platform

Assessment of learning outcomes is carried out through the evaluation of the exercises sessions carried out during the course and a final exam.

Reports on the 3 exercise sessions must be handed in before the final exam and contribute to the 30% of the final evaluation.

The final exam consists of a first written part dedicated to assessing the ability to compute some hydrological quantities of interest. In particular, the test consists of short numerical exercises which aim to verify the learning of the calculation techniques seen during the course. The written test is followed by an oral exam (usually carried out on the same day as the written test) where the report of the exercise sessions are discussed, and the learning outcomes are assessed.

- Front lectures.
- Exercise sessions in class.

Italian

written and oral