InTeGrate Modules and Courses >Water Sustainability in Cities > Student Materials > Unit 8: Extreme Hydroclimatic Events: Floods and Droughts
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These materials are part of a collection of classroom-tested modules and courses developed by InTeGrate. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The collection is freely available and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
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These student materials complement the Water Sustainability in Cities Instructor Materials. If you would like your students to have access to the student materials, we suggest you either point them at the Student Version which omits the framing pages with information designed for faculty (and this box). Or you can download these pages in several formats that you can include in your course website or local Learning Managment System. Learn more about using, modifying, and sharing InTeGrate teaching materials.
Initial Publication Date: July 15, 2016

Unit 8: Extreme Hydroclimatic Events: Floods and Droughts

Unit 8 covers the basics of hydroclimatic extreme events with a focus on floods and droughts. Topics include introduction to floods and droughts, impact of urbanization on extremes, how to understand and predict extremes, how to tackle them (management strategies), and elements of urban climate resilience.

Pre-class Activity

Read/Scan the following articles on flood frequency:

Go over the pre-class presentation slides (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 521kB Sep21 16) and complete the Pre-Class Assignment (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 28kB Sep21 16).

In-class Activity

Be ready to learn on the topics of:

  1. Fundamentals of floods, droughts, urban resilience
  2. Flood planning activity with Rational Method
  3. Drought analysis using real world examples with geospatial data
  4. Classroom discussion questions in a group setting (subject to grade):
  • What do we mean by "doing a statistical analysis" for extreme events and why it is necessary?
  • How does climate change affect the current understanding of and potential measures to tackle extreme events?
  • Thoughts on how the urban system can be more resilient to uncertain extreme events
These materials are part of a collection of classroom-tested modules and courses developed by InTeGrate. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The collection is freely available and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
Explore the Collection »