The water statistics course will teach water resources professionals how to apply statistics to extract basic information from a vast pool of data to make data relationships visible. Through lectures, examples, and hands-on exercises assessing water data with the statistical software programs R, students will develop an understanding of statistical methods through applications to field-oriented problems on water management.

• How to describe and summarize large water datasets
• How to develop a working hypothesis, correlations, linear regression, multiple regression, analysis of covariance, and trend analysis
• How to use statistical software to implement statistics

On completion of this module, students are expected to be able to:

• Interpret and analyze large datasets in regard to water resources
• Disseminate the analysis and their meaning to policy makers and stakeholders
• Utilize statistical software to analyze water resource datasets

6 credits

1. R. Helsel, R.M. Hirsch. Statistical Methods in Water Resources Techniques of Water Resources Investigations, Book 4, chapter A3. U.S. Geological Survey pp. 522 (2002).
2. S. Qian. Environmental and Ecological Statistics with R, Second Edition. Chapman and Hall/CRC pp. 560 (2016).