CEE 200-2 Seminar: Dr. Chandria S. Pathak will present “Advances in Hydrologic and Hydraulic Modeling”

Dr. Chandria S. Pathak, Senior Hydrologic and Hydraulic Engineer at the US Army Corps of Engineers, will present: “Advances in Hydrologic and Hydraulic Modeling”.

Summary:

This presentation will provide an overview of the latest advances in hydrologic and hydraulic models from the Hydrologic Engineering Center, Corps of Engineers, including HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS, HEC-WAT, HEC-MetVue, and HEC-SPSS models. Hydrologic and hydraulic models in water resources engineering are commonly used for planning, design and operation of various infrastructure and environmental projects. These models use different temporal and spatial scales and are dependent on the availability of data from various sources including different land, radar and satellite based sources. Improvements in data acquisition methods and instruments, and remote sensing techniques in the recent past have provided large amounts of data for calibration and validation of simulation models. However, random and systematic errors still remain in the hydrologic measurements and these errors affect the model results. Model calibration and parameter estimation processes are highly sensitive to measurement errors. There is a transition to a new paradigm in hydrological and hydraulic modeling processes where uncertainty information is considered integral and essential. Therefore, it is important to understand, identify, quantify and reduce the uncertainties involved in the modeling as well as the quality of input data. In the last decade, deterministic and stochastic sensitivity analyses have become common in engineering practice to establish confidence limits for the model outputs. Recent advances in the hydrologic and hydraulic modeling have incorporated uncertainty analysis features.

Biography:

Dr. Chandra S. Pathak has a distinguished career with over 35 years of experience in wide ranging areas of water resources and environmental engineering that included surface and ground water hydrology and hydraulics, water quality, storm water management, GIS, and hydrology, hydraulics and water quality computer models.  He obtained a bachelor of technology in 1976 and a master of engineering in water resources in 1978 and a doctorate in hydrologic engineering in 1983 from Oklahoma State University.  Currently, he is a senior hydrologic and hydraulic engineer at the Engineering and Construction Division, US Army Corps of Engineers, Headquarters at Washington, DC.  Before this position, he was a principal engineer at the South Florida Water Management District for 12 years. He is currently an adjunct professor at the George Mason University and served as an adjunct professor at the Florida Atlantic University from 2000 to 2016.  Previously, he was a practicing consulting engineer in the United States for over 20 years.  Since 2006, he has been serving as an associate editor of Journal of Hydrologic Engineering.  He has numerous presentations, speeches, and technical papers to his credit in the areas of water resources and environmental engineering. In 2007, he was awarded Diplomate of Water Resources Engineering and Fellow Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.