The Department of Watershed Sciences
The Department of Watershed Sciences offers comprehensive educational opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students in the hydrologic and ecological sciences pertaining to watersheds.
Our faculty provide expertise in all aspects of the hydrologic cycle, in the conservation, restoration and management of aquatic ecosystems, and in the remote sensing and geographic analysis of the earth's landcovers.
Graduates of our programs become teachers and researchers at major universities, scientists and managers for natural resource agencies, and professionals with consulting and non-profit environmental firms.
First-of-its-Kind Monitoring Tool Uses AI to Forecast Water Contamination
It takes an armada of sentries to keep contaminants out of your drinking water. When storms stir up sediments and push them downstream, water managers have to be ready to shut off one source of water and pivot to others. This creates major inefficiencies ...
Drones & Data: Learning How to Restore a Complex River System with AI
Despite the name, it’s actually rust-and-cream colored water that flows between the banks of the Green River in southeastern Utah. As a flotilla of canoes meanders down the narrow sandstone stretches and around the gooseneck bends of Labyrinth Canyon, eve...
Undergraduate Research Led the Way for Manny May to Discover His Passion
More akin to the sludge you find in the bottom of a wet-dry vac than a college research project, fish puke isn’t high on the list of study topics for most students. But that grey muck — similar in consistency to grits — was just the ticket for Manny May. ...
NPR: You might beat back phragmites, the scourge of wetlands, but then what?
Ecologists in Utah are trying to figure out how to get native plants growing there quickly, to prevent phragmites from taking hold once again. "It's a pretty new endeavor in many wetland systems and the methods are not tried and true," says Karin Kettenri...