Water Resources Science - PhD

The Water Resources Graduate Programs at Oregon State University award M.S. and Ph.D. degrees and brings together faculty and students from six colleges and multiple departments. Water resources are central to Oregon's well-being and development, and OSU is the state's flagship university for training water professionals with a rich roster of faculty and courses already in place.  Students will draw from a set of existing OSU courses covering engineering approaches, watershed processes, and/or water resources management and policy.

The Water Resources Science degree program is designed to train students broadly in water resources while maintaining an intellectual affiliation with a secondary field. Allied fields include ecology, forest science, geology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, climatology, geomorphology, soil physics, geochemistry, public health, and microbiology. Many of these scientific disciplines now have significant overlap with hydrology, and demand has increased for scientists trained in these areas to command a knowledge of hydrology. Increasing knowledge of connections between the biosphere and the hydrosphere are driving the emergence of the field of ecohydrology. Geologists have long been concerned with hydrology, and most groundwater issues require a reasonably sophisticated knowledge of geology. Problems in global change are increasingly recognized as linked to the land surface through freshwater runoff into the world's oceans and evapotranspiration. Many environmental problems require training in both hydrology and other areas of science. Students completing the WRS degree program will meet the coursework requirements to attain Professional Hydrologist certification through the American Institute of Hydrology.