Facilities & Field Research Sites
"Hydrologic science deals with the occurrence, distribution, circulation, and properties of water on the earth. It is clearly a multidisciplinary science, as water is important to and affected by physical, chemical, and biological processes within all compartments of the earth system: the atmosphere, glaciers and ice sheets, solid earth, rivers, lakes, and oceans."
National Research Council
Welcome to the Boise State
Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Program!
Our
students and faculty engage in research integrated across traditional disciplinary boundaries to investigate and address
important, and often complex, problems in the hydrologic sciences. Participating faculty and students come from
the disciplines of geological and biological sciences,
chemistry, engineering, mathematics and environmental sciences. Our students
can receive a Master’s Degree in
Hydrologic Sciences (Geosciences), Master's Degree in Civil Engineering,
Master's Degree in Biology, Master's Degree in Mathematics or a Ph.D. Degrees
in Geologic Sciences and Geophysics. We encourage interested students to
explore our website and contact individual faculty to learn more about
specific research and educational opportunities.
Our Program and Community
Our graduate program reflects our commitment to coupling outstanding teaching and an active, nationally recognized, research program. Our faculty are interested in fundamental questions related to how water and its constituents interact with the environment as well as more applied, societal issues, including surface and groundwater water quantity and quality, hydrologic influences on landscape processes, global climate change and engineering applications. Our research often takes us to field sites as near the Boise River and the Sawtooth Mountains and as distant as Alaska and Cambodia. Our faculty and graduate students typically work closely together on cross-disciplinary projects. Because of the shared core curriculum and common research interests, graduate students in the hydrologic sciences program and develop strong professional and personal connections that typically extend beyond graduation.
Active Subdisciplines at Boise State
University
Physical Hydrogeology: The study of groundwater, its flow,
distribution, and the processes controlling its behavior.
Surface Water Hydrology: The study of surface water, its flow,
distribution, and the processes controlling its behavior.
Vadose Zone Hydrology: The study of subsurface water located above
the groundwater table, including processes controlling its behavior.
Water Quality and Aqueous Geochemistry: The study of water chemistry,
processes
controlling water quality, and the application of chemical tools to a
variety of hydrologic questions.
Hydrology The study of the processes, physical, chemical and biological, that impact the quantity, quality, or distribution of water from the microscopic to the global scale.
Biogeochemistry: The study of elemental cycling and processes at
the microscopic to global scale with an emphasis on interaction of biology,
chemistry and physics.
Global Climate Change: The study of the interaction of the bio, geo,
hydro and atmospheres and their influence on global climate change.
Geomicrobiology: The study of microbial populations and associated
processes in ground and surface water.
Fluvial Geomorphology: The study of feedbacks between stream systems, fluvial processes and landforms, and ecology in river systems.
Hydrogeophysics: The study and application of geophysical techniques to shallow subsurface questions, often interrogating groundwater related questions.
Glacial Hydrology: The study of glaciers, their structure and function, and their role in the hydrologic budget and global climate change.
Numerical Methods: The study and application of mathematical and often computer based tools to the study of hydrologic processes.
Contaminant Hydrogeology: The study of the fate and treatment of contaminants in groundwater.
To learn who does what, explore our
faculty web sites.
