Applied Hydrogeology in Alberta

The course will intro­duce the prac­tice of hydro­ge­ol­o­gy as gen­er­al­ly applied in Alber­ta. Three areas of hydro­ge­ol­o­gy will be explored, with empha­sis on con­di­tions in Alber­ta. These areas include:(1) Hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal Site Assess­ment, (2) Ground­wa­ter Resource Eval­u­a­tion and Man­age­ment, and (3) Ground­wa­ter Mon­i­tor­ing. Top­ics will include prin­ci­ples and prac­tices of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed site assess­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry con­sid­er­a­tions, con­cep­tu­al mod­els, envi­ron­men­tal risk man­age­ment, and ground­wa­ter reme­di­a­tion. Meth­ods of char­ac­ter­iz­ing region­al base­line hydro­ge­ol­o­gy, ground­wa­ter resource quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty, and ground­wa­ter vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty will be cov­ered, along with dis­cus­sion of issues such as ground­wa­ter mod­el­ling, water­shed man­age­ment, ground­wa­ter-sur­face water inter­ac­tion, and impli­ca­tions of cli­mate change. Also con­sid­ered will be the key ele­ments of design­ing an effec­tive ground­wa­ter mon­i­tor­ing pro­gram both on a local and a region­al scale.