Question

Why is Water Resources Engineering considered an interdisciplinary field? Explain briefly and draw a complex diagram involving all (concepts, sciences, mathematics, physics, and everything).

Answer 1

Sol:- The graduate program in Water Resources Engineering at various University emphasizes interdisciplinary research and education on emerging themes related to environmental hydraulics hazards (e.g., floods, explosive air-water geyser flows, etc.), hydroinformatics, water resources systems analysis, watershed hydrology, flood management, green storm water infrastructure, water sustainability, and adaptation planning. The instructional program aims at developing strong abilities to conduct engineering work involving basic concepts and principles, technical analysis, planning, design and management. Program seeks to enable students to pursue research topics that cross the traditional boundaries of water resources engineering, and to prepare students for leadership positions in academia, private, and public sectors.

In the face of a myriad of complex water resource issues, traditional disciplinary separation is ineffective in developing tools to promote a sustainable water future. University of Idaho faculty have developed a graduate degree and research program in water resources called Waters of the West. The program trains students to integrate aspects of disciplines relevant to current water resource problems. The unique program focuses on developing innovative interdisciplinary strategies and solutions to the world’s critical water shortages and associated water quality issues. To accomplish this broad objective, the program offers three overlapping degree focus areas: (1) Water Resources Engineering & Science;; (2) Water Resources Science & Management;; and (3) Water Resources Law, Management & Policy. Additionally, concurrent JD/MS and JD/PhD degree options are available with any of the three option areas. The program is based on three key principles: (1) for students to effectively integrate across disciplines, their faculty must model that behavior;; (2) while integration across disciplines to address complex problems is in part an intuitive process learned by doing, it is possible and desirable to develop and teach a set of tools and processes to aid in integration;; and (3) the major water resource problems facing the world require approaches that combine disciplinary depth with disciplinary breadth and thus are best addressed through teamwork to integrate across disciplines. By using these three principles as the foundation of the Waters of the West graduate course in Interdisciplinary Methods in Water Resources, now entering its fifth year as the core course in the program, students are better prepared to begin interdisciplinary research. In the face of a myriad of complex water resource issues, traditional disciplinary separation is ineffective in developing tools to promote a sustainable water future. University of Idaho faculty have developed a graduate degree and research program in water resources called Waters of the West. The program trains students to integrate aspects of disciplines relevant to current water resource problems. The unique program focuses on developing innovative interdisciplinary strategies and solutions to the world’s critical water shortages and associated water quality issues. To accomplish this broad objective, the program offers three overlapping degree focus areas: (1) Water Resources Engineering & Science;; (2) Water Resources Science & Management;; and (3) Water Resources Law, Management & Policy. Additionally, concurrent JD/MS and JD/PhD degree options are available with any of the three option areas. The program is based on three key principles: (1) for students to effectively integrate across disciplines, their faculty must model that behavior;; (2) while integration across disciplines to address complex problems is in part an intuitive process learned by doing, it is possible and desirable to develop and teach a set of tools and processes to aid in integration;; and (3) the major water resource problems facing the world require approaches that combine disciplinary depth with disciplinary breadth and thus are best addressed through teamwork to integrate across disciplines. By using these three principles as the foundation of the Waters of the West graduate course in Interdisciplinary Methods in Water Resources, now entering its fifth year as the core course in the program, students are better prepared to begin interdisciplinary research.

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Water Research (ICWaR) at the Indian Institute of Science is established in April, 2015 with an aim to address water-related issues that have formidable scientific challenges and significant practical relevance. Over the past several decades, the Institute has made high impact contributions in the areas related to water science and technology, both at the large (country, regional and river basin) scales and at the small (watershed, experimental field and laboratory) scales. There is a significant multi-disciplinary strength available in the Institute to address a large number of critical issues related to water and make notable research contributions while simultaneously providing implementable solutions to a number of problems related to water management in the country.

The Centre aims to pursue the following objectives:

• to carry out advanced interdisciplinary research in the broad areas of water science and technology,
• to generate trained manpower through degree programmes of Ph.D., and M.Sc.(Engg), post doctoral research fellowships, short term internships and project mode appointments as SRFs, JRFs, Project Associates, Assistants and Trainees,
• to take up R&D projects with specific deliverables in the areas of water science and technology,
• to develop a vibrant visiting faculty programme to attract leading scientists and researchers in the field to visit the Institute and contribute to the growth of the Centre, and
• to develop outreach programmes through workshops and training programmes to disseminate knowledge.

Connection between Science , mathematics, physics, and Other Fields

The role of the mathematical sciences in industry has a long history, going back to the days when the Egyptians used the 3-4-5 right triangle to restore boundaries of farms after the annual flooding of the Nile. That said, the recent period is one of remarkable growth and diversification. Even in old-line industries, the role of the mathematical sciences has expanded. For example, whereas the aviation industry has long used mathematics in the design of airplane wings and statistics in ensuring quality control in production, now the mathematical sciences are also crucial to GPS and navigation systems, to simulating the structural soundness of a design, and to optimizing the flow of production. Instead of being used just to streamline cars and model traffic flows, the mathematical sciences are also involved in the latest developments, such as design of automated vehicle detection and avoidance systems that may one day lead to automated driving. Whereas statistics has long been a key element of medical trials, now the mathematical sciences are involved in drug design and in modeling new ways for drugs to be delivered to tumors, and they will be essential in making inferences in circumstances that do not allow double-blind, randomized clinical trials. The financial sector, which once relied on statistics to design portfolios that minimized risk for a given level of return, now makes use of statistics, machine learning, stochastic modeling, optimization, and the new science of networks in pricing and designing securities and in assessing risk.

Analogously, membership figures from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) demonstrate that a large number of individuals who are affiliated with academic or industrial departments other than mathematics or statistics nevertheless associate themselves with this mathematical science professional society.