The
concept of a "watershed" is as fundamental to the science of hydrology as is the
"atom" to physics and chemistry. It is the indivisible building block for understanding
the dynamics for the movement of water through Earth's and humankind's systems.
Professor Hermance proposes an interactive conceptual module illustrating the
fundamental elements of a generic watershed that are accessible to the client
on an intuitive level; then to apply these concepts to the Blackstone River Watershed
-- one of the principal sources of fresh water delivered to Narragansett Bay.
Mathematical details should be transparent to the client. The product will be
an interactive walk-through, fly-through three dimensional representation following
the path of a single raindrop as it falls, striking the Earth's surface, moving
into the subsurface, rising to generate stream flow, perhaps flooding along the
banks of various tributaries, and finally flowing into the ocean. This is for
a Brown University class on physical hydrology (GE 158), and will likely be developed
for dissemination on a CD-Rom. The project may also involve rescaling the content
for presentation to a more general audience on the Web, as well as making certain
of the concepts accessible to middle and high school students. Possible tools
include HTML/Java, Authorware and Director.
Site Last Updated 2/25/99