TRAINING.

Overview

After participating in this course, you will be able to:

• Develop strategies for effective watershed management
• Grasp uncertainty in risk assessment
• Understand how uncertainty in climate change analyses can propagate through hydrological modelling
• Discover select tools and methods used in watershed risk management
• Develop a fundamental understanding of flood risk assessment

Description
Watersheds, nature's own plumbing system, are complex networks where water ebbs and flows, playing a critical role in ecosystems, especially in northern regions. As climate change and human activities put these areas at risk, understanding watershed management and risk assessment has never been more crucial. Tailored for non-specialist professionals, our course serves as your compass to navigate this often complex and overlooked terrain.

This course offers a foundational map, charting the basics of risk and its pivotal role in watershed management. We dive into essential risk fundamentals and the various tools used for accurate assessment. This scaffolding allows you to explore the advanced territory of hydrological and hydraulic models, translating complex data into actionable insights for more resilient watershed management. What sets our course apart is its accessibility. You don't need to be a hydrology expert to grasp these concepts. Designed to make the complicated simple, our approach brings closer scrutiny to risk factors specific to northern regions, whose unique climate and geography present their own set of challenges and opportunities.

Enroll today and become an empowered stakeholder in safeguarding our vital water networks. Elevate your understanding, enrich your professional toolkit, and be part of the solution for more resilient, sustainable watersheds.

Who Should Attend
Professionals involved in the management of risk in the water sector, including Water Resource Engineers and Specialists • River Engineers • Environmental Specialists • Project Managers • Civil Engineers • Technologists and Technicians • Engineering Consultants

Please note: You can check other time zones here.

Syllabus

Day 1 – Hydrology and Climate Change (Saman Razavi)

Risk Fundamentals

• Classic approaches based on probability and return periods
• Uncertainty sources and the notion of deep uncertainty
• Stationarity assumptions in a non-stationary world

Climate Change

• IPCC scenarios of socio-economic changes
• Insights through climate models
• Incorporating climate change data into hydrological calculations

Basin Hydrology

• Watershed parametrizations
• Hydrologic model calibration and uncertainty analysis
• Hydrologic uncertainties affecting risks
• Hydrological risk

Day 2 – Surface Waters (Karl-Erich Lindenschmidt)

Fluvial Floods

• Open-water floods
• Ice-jam floods

Hazard

• Flow frequency distributions
• Stage frequency distributions

Risk

• Vulnerability
• Flood risk mapping and assessment
• Flood risk mitigation

Instructor

Karl-Erich Lindenschmidt, Ph.D., P.Eng.

Karl is an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a member of APEGS.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Manitoba, a Master of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the Technical University of Berlin.  Before his appointment at the University of Saskatchewan, Karl was with the Manitoba Water Stewardship as a hydrologic modelling research engineer, where one of his research topics involved monitoring and modelling river ice processes along the Red, Assiniboine and Dauphin Rivers.

His knowledge on river ice processes aided Red River Floodway operations, the Ice Jam Mitigation Program along the lower Red River and flood risk management of the Lake St. Martin/Dauphin River System.  He has also extended his portfolio of river ice work and research to include the Slave River in the Northwest Territories, the Peace and Athabasca Rivers in Alberta, and the South Saskatchewan and Qu'Appelle Rivers in Saskatchewan.

Saman Razavi, Ph.D., P. Eng

Dr. Saman Razavi is an Associate Professor of hydrology and water resources engineering at the School of Environment and Sustainability, Department of Civil, Geological and Environmental Engineering, and Global Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan. He received a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2013.

Dr. Razavi’s research is at the science-policy interface, bridging hydrological modelling and predicting flood and drought events to integrated management of water and environmental systems and decision and policy making. He develops methods based on systems and data sciences, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, and machine learning. He is the lead developer of VARS-Tool, which is a toolbox for sensitivity and uncertainty analysis (https://vars-tool.com/), and the Principal Investigator of the Integrated Modelling Program for Canada (https://gwf.usask.ca/impc/).

Dr. Razavi has taught courses in engineering hydrology at the undergraduate level, where he modernized the existing curriculum. At the graduate level, he has offered advanced watershed modelling, optimization, and sensitivity and uncertainty analysis courses. Dr. Razavi has advised governments on important water-related issues, including drainage impacts in the prairies, water licensing and allocation, and tradeoffs between irrigation expansion, hydropower and environmental or cultural flows. He contributes to the engineering and scientific community through his role on the editorial boards of the Journal of Hydrology, Environmental Modelling & Software, and Frontiers in Water. He is also the past chair of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)’s Technical Committee on Hydrologic Uncertainty and has run many sessions at multiple national and international conferences.

Dr. Razavi is the recipient of several awards, including the 2020 Early Career Research Excellence Award from the International Environmental Modeling and Software Society and the 2019 Young Scientist Award from the Canadian Geophysical Union. His research has been featured in media, such as CBC, CTV, and Radio Canada.