Parallel watershed and hdyrodynamic models

This research embodies a profound new approach in watershed management: community interaction in the design process. Past management approaches have included public participation at the beginning or end of a design process, whereas here the watershed community will be included in all aspects of the design process. Community participation is particularly important for the adoption of distributed upland storage as an alternative to past structural methods for controlling floods: non-structural methods are often on private lands and require the acceptance and participation of watershed inhabitants. As well as its research contributions, the project will provide training of graduate students and undergraduate students in Earth and Environmental Sciences and Computer Science, jointly by the investigators and collaborators, in a multi-disciplinary project environment. Further, the methodologies can be extended to other domains involving the intersection of man-made, environmental, and societal systems. Presenting our results widely to audiences involved in environmental and ecosystem management, we will help promote more participatory management of our nation’s environmental resources.