The New Water Resources Program at Oregon State University (OSU) awards M.S. and Ph.D. degrees and brings together faculty and students from six colleges and twelve departments. The five new degrees are: Water Resources Engineering M.S. and Ph.D. Water Resources Science M.S. and Ph.D. Water Resources Policy and Management M.S. The Water Resources Program includes core requirements for all students with additional work concentrated in specified degree programs. These degrees are designed to allow flexibility in coursework, while insuring an outstanding foundation and specialization in the student's area of interest. The core requirement for all Water Resources Programs students is three courses which total 6 credits: Water Resources Seminar; Oregon Water Policy and Law; and Sociotechnical Aspects of Water Resource Management. The required Water Resources Program courses provide basic information about water resources issues in the Pacific Northwest, provide a basic understanding of the scientific, social, and legal framework for water resources, and bring students together as a cohort. OSU has long been a leader in water-related research and graduate education, but until now has not offered a degree devoted exclusively to preparing water resource professionals. "When I came to OSU in 1991, I was absolutely struck by the richness of the water resources community here," says John Selker, OSU Bioengineering professor and former interim director of the Water Resources Graduate Program.

John Selker and Starr Metcalf installing a temperature profiler in the Walla Walla River at Milton Freewater to assess stream aquifer interactions.

Pacific Northwest Regional Water Quality Coordination Project Partners Land Grant Universities Alaska Cooperative Extension Service Contact Fred Sorensen: 907-786-6311 http://www.uaf.edu/ces/water/ University Publications: http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/ces/publications/ Idaho University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System Contact Bob Mahler: 208-885-7025 http://www.uidaho.edu/wq/wqhome.html University Publications: http://info.ag.uidaho.edu/Catalog/catalog.html Oregon Oregon State University Extension Service Contact Mike Gamroth: 541-737-3316 http://extension.oregonstate.edu/ University Publications: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/ Washington Washington State University WSU Extension Contact Bob Simmons: 360-427-9670 ext. 690 http://wawater.wsu.edu/ University Publications: http://pubs.wsu.edu/ Northwest Indian College Contact Charlotte Clausing: 360-392-4319 cclausing@nwic.edu or http://www.nwic.edu/ Water Resource Research Institutes Water and Environmental Research Center (Alaska) http://www.uaf.edu/water/ Idaho Water Resources Research Institute http://www.boise.uidaho.edu/ Institute for Water and Watersheds (Oregon) http://water.oregonstate.edu/ State of Washington Water Research Center http://www.swwrc.wsu.edu/ Environmental Protection Agency EPA, Region 10 The Pacific Northwest http://www.epa.gov/r10earth/ Office of Research and Development, Corvallis Laboratory http://www.epa.gov/wed/ For more information contact Jan Seago at 206-553-0038 or seago.jan@epa.gov
	Students in the Water Resources Graduate Program at OSU have the opportunity to work with some of the leading water researchers on campus and others who regularly visit from across the US and around the world. OSU has about 80 faculty studying and teaching the chemistry, ecology, socio-politics, and physics of water and watersheds in the Colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, Forestry, Liberal Arts, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, and Science. In addition, research laboratories for several federal agencies are located in Corvallis, including the US Forest Service, US EPA, USGS, and NOAA. Scientists at these agencies are available to work with graduate students and often fund water-related research projects. OSU has unique facilities for researchers studying water, including one of the most densely gauged watershed in the US—Oak Creek Basin. The HJ Andrews Long Term Ecological Research site is a key resource, devoted in large part over the past 50 years to understanding the role of water in forest ecosystems.
	Water resources professionals are very much in demand. Almost every major business, industry, agricultural, and recreational activity depends on a reliabe system of water resources management and control: "We get at least two requests for Water Resource Graduates for every student who graduates," says Selker. Our state and nation are facing increasingly complex issues of water allocation and quality: stream temperature regulation, riparian management, irrigation efficiency, watershed management, and evaluation of dams, to name just a few. With degrees from the Water Resources Program, OSU graduates will be strongly positioned to impact these issues. For more information about the OSU Water Resources Graduate program visit http://www.oregonstate.edu/gradwater/.
		Chris Vick, first graduate from the new OSU Water Resources Graduate Program, worked with John Selker to characterize nitrate in groundwater in the southern Willamette Valley.
	National Water Quality Program Areas The four land grant universities in the Pacific Northwest have aligned our water resource extension and research efforts with eight themes of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Animal Waste Management Drinking Water and Human Health Environmental Restoration Nutrient and Pesticide Management Pollution Assessment and Prevention Watershed Management Water Conservation and Agricultural Water Management Water Policy and Economics
	This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No 2008-51130-4734.

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HOME | About | Calendar | Contacts | Links | PNW Water Updates | Sitemap NIFA National Water Quality Program This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2008-51130-04734. all external sites will open in a new browser window page last modified on August 27, 2006