AU Online Water-Related Courses

Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology

RSOC 3560 – Environment, Society, and Justice (3 hours)- Dr. Thomson – Offered Every Other Fall, Online Already, Partially Asynchronous; Course Description: The course introduces environmental sociology and environmental justice by exploring environmental problems throughout AL and possible pathways for their resolution through guest speakers and documentaries in association with the Alabama Rivers Alliance.
RSOC 4410/7410 – Extension Programs and Methods (3 hours)- Dr. Molnar – Offered Spring, Online Already, Partially Asynchronous; Course Description: Theories and practice of applied social change; commmunication strategies to reach resource users; conservations adoption and innovation strategies

Department of Biosystems Engineering

BSEN 3230 – Natural Resource Conservation Engineering (3 hours)- Dr. Davis – Offered Spring, Available Online Soon, Not Asynchronous; Course Description: Basics of hydrology and runoff estimation, sedimentation, erosion, hydrologic modeling (basic), erosion & sedimentation control, storm water management.
BSEN 5520/6520 – Watershed Modeling (3 hours)- Dr. Lamba – Offered Every Other Spring, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: Engineering classes recommended for Pre-req.
BSEN 7140 – Algae Systems Engineering (3 hours)- Dr. Blersch – Offered Spring, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: No hard engineering prerequisites.

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

CIVL 4230 – Urban Hydraulic Systems Design (3 hours)- Dr. Vasconcelos- Offered Spring, Available Online Soon; Course Description: Portion of the course focuses on urban stormwater design applying EPA SWMM5.
CIVL 5120/6120/6126 – Hydrologic Analysis and Modeling (3 hours)- Dr. O’Donnell – Offered Spring, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: Appropriate for students who have not previously taken hydrology. Covers basic use of ArcHydro and HEC-HMS.
CIVL 6150/6156 – Groundwater Hydraulics (3 hours)- Dr. O’Donnell – Offered Annually, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: Mechanics of groundwater flow, definitions, conservation of mass, Darcy’s law, confined and unconfined flow, steady and transient flow, groundwater transport.
CIVL 7140/7146 – Ecohydrology (3 hours)- Dr. Vasconcelos – Offered Every Other Fall, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: Topics include the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum; vadose zone hydrology; theory, measurement, and modeling of evapotranspiration; ecological competition in water-limited systems; and current issues and research topics in ecohydrology. The recommended prerequisite is a basic hydrology course (such as CIVL 5120/6120/6126), but this is not required.
CIVL 7170 – Numerical Solutions for Hydro-Environmental Applications (3 hours)- Dr. Vasconcelos – Offered Every Other Fall, Available Online Soon, Not Asynchronous; Course Description: Theory and implementation of mathematical models explaining a variety of environmental processes and water resources applications.

Department of Crop, Soil & Environmental Sciences

CSES 3000 (no Grad Section) – Introduction to Stream Restoration (4 hours)- Dr. Knappenberger – Offered TBD, Available Online Soon, Not Asynchronous; Course Description: This course focuses on the role of sediments in material and biogeochemical cycle.
CSES 5020/6020/5023/6026 – Nutrient Management (3 hours)- Dr. Guertal – Offered Spring & Summer, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: Nutrient and fertilizer fate in soil and water systems.
CSES 6006 – Soils and Environmental Quality (3 hours)- Dr. Waters – Offered Fall, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: The way I teach this course it focuses more on ag-water related issues as well as detailed nutrient biogeochemistry in water.
CSES 6250 – Aquatic Sediments (3 hours)- Dr. Waters – Offered Every Other Spring, Available Online Soon, Not Asynchronous; Course Description: This course focuses on the role of sediments in material and biogeochemical cycle.
CSES 6596 – Environmental Soil Physics (4 hours)- Dr. Knappenberger – Offered Fall, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description:
CSES 7250 – Crop Physiology (3 hours)- Dr. Sanz-Saez – Offered Fall, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: Study of crop response to its environment, focusing on crop responses to abiotic stress such as water stress.
CSES 7600 – Agroclimatology (3 hours)- Dr. Tian – Offered Fall, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: The course covers climatology and basic modeling in agriculture and water resources.
CSES 8580 – Fate and Transport of Chemicals in Soils (3 hours)- Dr. Knappenberger – Offered Spring on Demand, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: Could be developed into an online spring course.

Department of Geosciences

GEOL 5060/6060 – Applied Geophysics (4 hours)- Dr. Wolf – Offered Every Other Fall, Available Online Soon, Not Asynchronous; Course Description: Geophysical techniques focusing on shallow subsurface imaging techniques.

School of Fisheries, Aquaculture & Aquatic Sciences

FISH 7350 – Meta-Analysis (3 hours)- Dr. Wilson – Offered Every Spring, Online Already, Online synchronous; Course Description: Meta-analysis is a quantitative approach for synthesizing results from diverse research studies that address a similar hypothesis. Effect sizes calculated from individual studies are combined to elucidate general patterns across studies. The technique can be a powerful option for identifying interesting patterns in disciplines where the availability of large, under-analyzed datasets is common, such as ecology, psychology, kinesiology, physiology, medicine, and education. Through participating in this course, you will broaden your understanding of meta-analysis and conduct your own meta-analysis. This course satisfies one of the electives for the new Graduate Certification in Computational Biology.

School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences

GSEI 7200 – Land and Climate Interactions (3 hours)- Dr. Kumar – Offered Every Other Spring, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: Hydroclimatology: how does land climate interactions affect water availability.
FORY/NATR 7550 – Watershed Hydrology (3 hours)- Dr. Kalin – Offered Fall, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: Classes will be live and recorded, and therefore very flexible. The class covers components of the hydrologic cycle in detail.
FORY/NATR 7560 – Modeling Environmental Change at Multiple Scales (3 hours)- Dr. Kalin – Offered Every Other Spring, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: Modeling fundamentals to solve environmental change problems at multiples scales driven by climate variability/change and land use/cover change.
FOWS 5263 – Forest Wetland Restoration Ecology (3 hours)- Dr. Shepard – Offered Summer, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: History and policy of wetlands destruction and restoration, wetland classification and inventory, techniques for assessing wetland functions, and techniques for forest wetlands restoration.
FOWS 6266 – Forest Wetland Restoration Ecology (3 hours)- Dr. Shepard – Offered Summer, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: History and policy of wetlands destruction and restoration, wetland classification and inventory, techniques for assessing wetland functions, and techniques for forest wetlands restoration.
FOWS 7266 – Forest Wetland Restoration Ecology (3 hours)- Dr. Shepard – Offered Fall & Spring, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: History and policy of wetlands destruction and restoration, wetland classification and inventory, techniques for assessing wetland functions, and techniques for forest wetlands restoration.
FOWS 7276 – Wetland Policy (3 hours)- Dr. Shepard – Offered Summer, Online Already, Asynchronous; Course Description: Historical development of wetland protection and current U.S. and international wetland policies.
NATR 5430 – Human Dimensions of Natural Resources (3 hours)- Dr. Dunning – Offered Spring, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: A broad overview of the different human-oriented disciplines (political science, anthropology, sociology) and how those relate to questions about natural resources. An example case would be whose interests matter the most in Everglades restoration? Farmers? City dwellers? Plants and animals? Future generations?
NATR 5630 – Conservation Biology (3 hours)- Dr. Dunning – Offered Spring, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: A look at the methods for planning for conservation, whether in national parks, state parks, public lands in general, and any other type of protected area. Plus, we look at the methods and tools for selecting a site, implementing a plan, and winning over stakeholders. For example, how would you make a watershed plan for your county?
NATR 7250 – Surveying and Interviewing for Scientists (3 hours)- Dr. Dunning – Offered Spring, Available Online Soon, Potentially Asynchronous; Course Description: If you are a biologist, ecologist, or modeller, and you want to incorporate social science data into your research this class will show you how. We will collect data and learn how to analyze it. This class can be taken by social science students (i.e. political scientists) who want more insights into interdisciplinary research.