The Centre for Hydrology at the U of Saskatchewan: Process-Based Hydrological Modelling (Online)

The University of Saskatchewan Centre for Hydrology is offering an intensive course on the fundamentals of process-based hydrological modelling, including model development, model application, and model evaluation. The course will explain the model constructs that are necessary to simulate dominant hydrological processes, the assumptions that are embedded in models of different type and complexity, and best practices for model development and model applications. The course will cover the full model ecosystem, including the spatial discretization of the model domain, input forcing data generation, model evaluation, parameter estimation, post-processing, uncertainty characterization, data assimilation, and ensemble streamflow forecasting methods. The overall intent of the course is to provide participants with the understanding and tools that are necessary to develop and apply models across a broad range of landscapes. Specifically, the course will convey an understanding of how to represent existing process understanding in numerical models, how to devise meaningful model experiments, and how to evaluate these experiments in a systematic way. Along the way, participants will have the opportunity to build models, run models, make changes, and analyze model output.

Since the course is quantitative in nature, we recommend that participants have a firm foundation in calculus and physics at the first-year university level and some experience in computing (e.g., familiarity with python, R, matlab). We also recommend that participants have a strong background in hydrology, e.g., as obtained by taking Geography 827 "Principles of Hydrology" at the University of Saskatchewan or a similar graduate-level course in hydrology.

Please note that the University of Saskatchewan is an English-speaking institution and it is expected that students registering in this course are proficient in written and spoken English.