Introduction 

Hydrology and climatology are two closely related branches of earth science. Almostallvariablesinhydrologicaland/orclimatologicalprocessesexhibitcertain degree of randomness. Either from a scientific or engineering point of view, understanding and characterizing the random nature of hydroclimatic processes enables us to make sound decisions for water management and disaster prevention. In this course, students will learn step by step from characterizing and simulating a single random variable to simulation of a spatiotemporal random field which is composed of many correlated random variables in space and in time. Stochastic simulation will be highly emphasized in class since it is the foundation for probability-based risk assessment. 

The objectives of this course are:

1.   To introduce fundamental concept of stochastic modeling, and their applications.

2.   To demonstrate the stochastic nature of hydroclimatic processes.

3.   To discuss the uncertainty involved in model parameter estimationandintroduce the techniques of stochastic simulation for quantifying uncertainties.

4.   To demonstrate stochastic modeling of hydroclimaticprocesses.

5.   To demonstrate practical applications of stochastic modeling/simulation for water resources management and riskassessment.

Prequisits:

• Entry level hydrology
• Entry level statistics
• Capability of coding with R language