Hydrology and Water Resources

The Hydrology and Water Resources graduate program focuses on processes that control the transport and distribution of water in the environment and their influence on water supplies, flooding, ecosystems and climate. The program covers topics such as groundwater and surface-water hydrology, hydrometeorology, hydraulics and remote sensing and emphasizes predictive modeling approaches.

Admission to the program is nationally and internationally competitive. Financial support through research or teaching assistantships and a variety of fellowships and scholarships is available to qualified students.

Featured Student

Humberto Gallegos, Fourth-year Ph.D. Student
Advisor:  Brett F. Sanders, Ph.D.
"The research I’m currently involved in investigates the performance and accuracy of an urban dam-break flood model while examining several important factors such as computation mesh resolution, DTM resolution, DTM sources, resistance heterogeneity, sub-surface storm drains, breach geometry and reservoir volume.  In addition, I’m testing and analyzing several hydraulic indicators to support damage state predictions such as collapse versus no collapse for residential structures located inside the flood path."
Hydrology and Water Resources Faculty
 

Rafael Bras, Dean and Distinguished Professor (CEE)
   Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
   Ecohydrology, fluvial geomorphology, hydrometeorology, watershed hydrology.

Russell Detwiler, Assistant Professor (CEE)
   Ph.D., University of Colorado
   Groundwater hydrology, contaminant transport, coupled processes in porous and fractured media

James (Jay) Famiglietti, Professor (Earth System Science/CEE) 
   Ph.D., Princeton University 
   Hydrologic and climate system modeling.

Xiaogang Gao, Adjunct Professor (CEE) 
   Ph.D., University of Arizona 
   Hydroclimatology; remote sensing; precipitation estimation.

Kuo-lin Hsu, Associate Adjunct Professor (CEE) 
   Ph.D., University of Arizona 
   Hydrologic modeling; artificial neural network applications in hydrology.

Bisher Imam, Associate Adjunct Professor (CEE) 
   Ph.D., University of Arizona 
   Hydrologic modeling; artificial neural network applications in hydrology. 

Brett F. Sanders, Associate Professor (CEE) 
   Ph.D., University of Michigan 
   Computational hydrodynamics; modeling river, estuarine and coastal waters; coastal water quality, flood control.

Jean-Daniel Saphores, Associate Professor (CEE/Policy Planning and Design) 
   Ph.D., Cornell University 
   Environmental and natural resource economics.

Soroosh Sorooshian, Distinguished Professor (CEE/Earth System Science) 
   Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles 
   Hydrologic systems; rainfall-runoff modeling; remote sensing.

For further information on the Water Resources program, please contact:
 

Dr. Brett F. Sanders 
Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor 
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering 
University of California, Irvine 
Irvine, CA 92697-2175 
bsanders@uci.edu (E-Mail) 
(949) 824-4327 (Phone) 
(949) 824-3672 (Fax)
 

For a graduate application and financial aid information, please contact:
 

April Heath
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering 
University of California, Irvine 
Irvine, CA 92697-2175
a.heath@uci.edu (Email) 
(949) 824-0584 (Phone) 
(949) 824-2117 (Fax)