A Nationwide Comprehensive Water Management System: Can We Get There and Why Should We Care?
Guest Speaker: Christopher N. Dunn P.E, D.WRE, Director, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Institute for Water Resources, Hydrologic Engineering Center, Davis, CA
Abstract:
A primary mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE, Corps) is to manage the nation's water resources. The Corps performs this mission across multiple purposes at the direction of the United States Congress. To satisfactorily meet these sometimes conflicting purposes, both now and in the future, it is critical that the nation's water resources are studied and managed in a holistic and comprehensive approach. Several tools have been developed to study and manage our nation's water resources both from a planning and a real-time water management perspective. The suite of water management tools is the Water Management Enterprise System (WMES) and the Corps Water Management System (CWMS) and the overarching tool to perform alternative analyses is the Hydrologic Engineering Center's (HEC) Watershed Analysis Tool (HEC-WAT). While these tools exist, the Corps is just beginning to consistently apply these state-of-the-art tools across the nation. Even though the technical capabilities existed, the resources did not. This presentation introduces the tools and describes new efforts that are attempting to implement these tools and why it is critical that these tools be applied consistently.
About the Speaker:
Mr. Dunn has been the Director of the Hydrologic Engineering Center (CEIWR-HEC) since May 2006, leading a staff of about 45, consisting primarily of hydraulic engineers and computer scientists, and overseeing an annual budget of approximately $15M. HEC’s diverse program focuses on hydrologic and hydraulic engineering and planning analysis encompassing research, software development, special projects, training and technology transfer, and technical assistance to Corps field offices, Corps HQ, other agencies, and other nations.
The Center participates in a wide range of domestic, interagency, and international projects and activities including reservoir and systems modeling in support to the Columbia River Treaty; technical assistance to southeastern districts on the ACT/ACF update of water control manuals; water management model development and support of the nationwide CWMS implementation; reach-back technical assistance to Corps projects in Iraq and Afghanistan; training in numerous international locations such as Brazil, Korea, Taiwan, England, Netherlands, and South Africa; provision of technical leadership for meetings with the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transportation (MLIT); and, collaboration with the USGS and the NWS in the Integrated Water Resources Science and Services effort.
Mr. Dunn has spent over 30 years in the Water Resources profession working as a Regional Hydraulics Engineer for the Federal Highway Administration for 13 years prior to his service with HEC. He joined HEC in February of 1999 as a Senior Hydraulic Engineer and later became a Division Chief at the Center. He holds a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Civil Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.
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