Forman Research Group @ UMD
"Water Resources @ UMD"

Forman Research Group

Civil and Environmental Engineering

University of Maryland

Research Projects

Research Team

Associate Professor
and
Group Leader

Bart Forman, P.E., Ph.D.

Research interests include terrestrial hydrology, hydrometerology, remote sensing, machine learning, high-performance computing, and data assimilation (click here for condensed CV)

Postdoctoral Researcher

Jing Wang

Research interests include distributed hydrologic modeling of stormwater and satellite-based gravimetry of terrestrial water storage (click here for CV)

Ph.D. Candidate

Jawairia Ahmad

Research interests include remote sensing of snow and climate change impacts as applied to High Mountain Asia (click here for CV)

Ph.D. Candidate

Lizhao Wang

Research interests include snow-coverd area and snow water equivalent (SWE) estimation using space-based radar (click here for CV)

Ph.D. Student

Alireza Moghaddasi

Research interests include remote sensing of snow and terrestrial water storage using space-borne radiometry and gravimetry (click here for CV)

Master's Student

Colin McLaughlin

Research interests include dynamic viewing of space-borne sensors applied to LiDAR, RADAR, and radiometry (click here for CV)

Master's Student

Bincheng Yu

Research interests include machine learning and space-based remote sensing as applied to terrestrial snow mass estimation (click here for CV)

Research Group Alumni

Bachelor's Degree

Omar Al Banna

Bachelor's Degree

Nicole Heinlein

Postdoctoral Researcher

Yonghwan Kwon

Doctoral Degree

Lu Liu

Doctoral Degree

Jongmin Park

Master's Degree

Meghan Ryan

Affiliated Postdoc
???

Jing Tao

Master's Degree

Saad Tarik

Doctoral Degree

Yuan Xue

Doctoral Degree

Gaohong Yin

Courses Offered


Undergraduate Level

Fundamentals of Engineering Fluids

Examines the theoretical bases for fluid statics and dynamics, including the conservation of mass, energy and momentum. Modeling of hydraulic systems is introduced. Pipe flow and open-channel hydraulics are emphasized with application to real-world problems. (click here for syllabus)

Undergraduate Level

Numerical Methods

Explores a wide-range of algorithms and techniques for solving problems in important areas of engineering. Topics include roots of equations, matrix algebra, solution of linear and nonlinear systems, function approximation, numerical differentiation, and numerical integration. (click here for syllabus)


Graduate Level

Remote Sensing of Global Water

Introduces basic concepts of remote sensing in water resource management. Discussion of measurements related to soil moisture, snow, groundwater, precipitation, and river discharge. Application of remote sensing datasets in the characterization and quantification of global freshwater. (click here for syllabus)

Graduate Level

Data Assimilation and Data Analytics

Hydrologic quantities are typically estimated from observations or via physical models. The emerging field of “data assimilation” is a general technique whereby observations and physical models are optimally merged. The goal of data assimilation is to derive the most utility from two disparate data streams. (click here for syllabus)

Graduate Level

Land-Atmosphere Interactions

Explores the role of hydrology in the climate system, precipitation and evaporation processes, atmospheric radiation, the exchange of mass, heat, and momentum between the soil and vegetative surface and the overlying atmosphere, and the flux and transport of water within the turbulent boundary layer. (click here for syllabus)

Engineers Without Borders


UCLA Chapter

Guatemala

More than a dozen household-scale (~10 people/house) rainwater collection systems have been constructed since the inception of this project. Each concrete system collects and stores clean, drinking water during the rainy season so that residents have safe, drinking water during the dry season when water is scarce. Click here to watch a video discussing the project approach.

Maryland Chapter

Ethiopia

The construction of: 1) a community meeting center, 2) a concrete, steel-reinforced pedestrian bridge, and 3) a stormwater runoff control system that runs through the market center were completed in recent years. Our dedicated partnership with the community of Addis Alem will continue during the next phase of our project in the Fall of 2016.



Maryland Chapter

Peru (Water)

A liquid drip chlorination system was successfully installed in January 2014 and is currently undergoing monitoring. The system was designed to disinfect fecal coliform from the water supply. The overarching goal is to deliver safe, pathogen-free drinking water to the residents of Compone, Peru, a small village about 20 miles from Machu Picchu.

Maryland Chapter

Peru (Bridge)

A pedestrian and livestock bridge is currently under construction in order to improve safety and reduce traffic-related fatalities. Phase I of the steel-reinforced, concrete bridge was completed in the summer of 2017. Phase II will be completed in 2018 thereby linking communities and avoiding close proximity between pedestrians, animals, and dangerous vehicles.


Contact Information


Phone

301-405-1148 (office)

Physical Address

University of Maryland
c/o Professor Barton A. Forman
Civil and Environmental Engineering
4298 Campus Drive
College Park, MD 20742-3021