Groundwater Hydrology OpenCourseWare: A Free Graduate Study Hydrology Course by MIT

Published Jan 06, 2009

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Civil and environmental engineers need to understand how groundwater behaves and whether their goal is to keep it clean or keep it out of the basement. 'Groundwater Hydrology' is brought to us free of cost thanks to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and is a free OpenCourseWare. Whether you are working toward a Master of Science in Environmental Science, a Master of Engineering or any similar graduate degree, you will find this online course useful.

Groundwater Hydrology: Course Specifics

Degree Level Free Audio Video Downloads
Graduate Yes No Yes Yes

Lectures/Notes Study Materials Tests/Quizzes
Yes Yes Yes

Groundwater Hydrology: Course Description

Professor Charles Harvey of MIT teaches this course, which includes a field trip and some lab work. The OpenCourseWare version provides as much of the course as possible. Starting with the hydrologic cycle and water budgets, the course will then flow naturally into studying groundwater. You'll learn about Darcy's Law, steady-state and transient flows, streamlines and flow nets and more. Next you'll look at well hydraulics, including Thiem and Theis equations and various tests, as well as contaminant transport. Wind up with soil moisture, natural tracers and hydraulic conductivity. You will need access to FEFLOW (Finite Element subsurface FLOW system), a 3-D groundwater modeling software, to open some files and complete some assignments.

Downloads include lecture notes and assignments, the assignments and movies from a Cape Cod trip, assignments and case studies from Bangladesh, and animations of some processes. To learn more about how groundwater behaves, visit the groundwater hydrology course page.

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