Project and Water News

As an engineer, Dr. David Rosenberg routinely balances the quest for optimal solutions with the realities that impact adoptability. In his USU TedX talk, he explains why near-best solutions are often the key to solving water management problems.

David holds a joint appointment with the Utah State University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Utah Water Research Laboratory. He co-teaches a multi-campus Hydroinformatics graduate course and serves on the CI-WATER High-Resolution Multi-Physical Watershed Modeling and Education and Outreach teams.

The CI-WATER Teaching Toolboxes are garnering national attention. These mobile kits contain equipment and resources to boost interest in water science and awareness of water resources and climate, population and land use.

CI-WATER is hosting a free screening of the film “Watershed: Exploring a New Water Ethic for the New West” on Thursday, November 14 at 7 p.m. in the KBYU Broadcast Center. A panel discussion and refreshments will follow.

Winner of 36 awards, “Watershed” tells the story of the threats to the once-mighty Colorado River and offers solutions for the future of the American West. Panelists include Dr. Julie Suhr Pierce, a specialist in Great Basin socioeconomics; Dr. Zachary Aanderud, a professor of Plant and Wildlife Science; and Nathaniel Todea, a hydraulics engineer for the Utah United States Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service.

More information including a map and registration for free parking by the KBYU Broadcast Center.

When it comes to water management, knowing how water moves and where it ends up is crucial. That’s why a team of CI-WATER researchers are working on a new model, called ADHydro.

ADHydro will be the most robust model of its kind, presenting high-resolution detail for a broad geographical area. It will enable researchers to more accurately measure how fast water soaks through the soil, how fast the water flows over land and more. With these calculations, researchers can determine where the water goes and how it gets there.

"ADHydro is physics-based, meaning that it simulates specific physical processes as opposed to a curve-fitting model that can be calibrated to match historical data, but doesn’t simulate specific physics processes," says Dr. Robert Steinke, a software engineer on the interdisciplinary team developing the model.

"It’s important to CI-WATER because one of the goals of CI-WATER is to allow watershed managers in the field access to high performance computing resources," says Robert.

The ADHydro model is set for initial deployment next year. The completed model will give researchers the tools they need to study water movement in the field, ultimately helping water managers better understand this essential resource.