Water Management and Conservation Research Unit

USDA-ARS U.S. Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center

Research Hydraulic Engineer

Education:

PhD, Fluid Mechanics, State University of Iowa, 1962

MS, Mechanics and Hydraulics, State University of Iowa, 1955

BS, Civil Engineering, City College New York (magna cum laude), 1953

Research Interests:

My principal research goals are to provide tools and methodology for action agencies to apply in design and management recommendations to their clients. For maximum applicability, these tools are based on the fundamental laws of physics, with as little empiricism as possible. These lead to computer models of the phenomena that can be readily exercised in repeated simulations in the search for an optimum. Initial efforts centered on flow in hydraulic control structures, analyzed with potential flow techniques, then on unsteady flow in canals and rivers, including natural and dam-break flooding. The main focus in recent years has been on surface irrigation hydraulics, in particular, simulation of one-dimensional flows in furrows, borders, and basins, under a wide range of conditions, and two-dimensional flows in irregular basins. Corollary software making use of dimensionless representations of flow behavior and providing overviews of border-irrigation performance assists in design and management of border strips. Field-parameter estimation techniques to establish values of infiltration and roughness parameters for the simulation and design software are also of concern. Most recently, the simulation effort has extended to transport of constituents such as eroded soil, phosphorus, and nitrogen in surface fertigation.

Research Projects:

Water Management in Arid Irrigated Agriculture