An Instructional Framework For Introducing Spatially Distributed Hydrologic Design Concepts

Spatially distributed information technologies are emerging as an integral component of decision-making and design practices within the biological and agricultural engineering community (Mohtar and Engel, 2000; Ouyang and Barthoic, 2001; Choi et al., 2002). Several hydrologic and water quality models, such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) (Di Luzio et al., 1997), the Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Non-point Sources (BASINS) program (Di Luzio et al., 2002), the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AWGA) model (Miller et al., 2002), and the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) software packages (USACE-HEC, 2000a; USACE-HEC, 2000b), are now constructed within geographical information system (GIS) frameworks. These types of GIS-based tools allow an engineer to better visualize problems and to design with spatially distributed data sets. With the increasing trends in availability and use of spatially distributed data, it is imperative that basic distributed modeling techniques be introduced to undergraduate students in a biological and agricultural engineering curriculum.