LDARCH 119
Flood Risk Management
This course explains fundamental concepts in flood risk management, summarizes the history of flood management in California, the US, and globally, and tracks the development of state-of-the art approaches to assessing flood risk, equity implications, and utilizing nature-based solutions to sustainably manage floods. The course is offered at both the upper-division undergraduate (LA119) and graduate (LA229) levels. Lectures are the same for both undergrad and grad courses, but there are separate discussion sections and requirements.
Topics
- The objective of the course is to provide students with an understanding of the physical processes giving rise to floods, and also the social and institutional response to flood risk.
- Students will learn the fundamental hydrologic processes behind flooding, the models commonly employed to assess the extent of flood hazard, the limitations of extrapolating short hydrologic records to estimate long-return period floods such as the 100-year flood, limitations of structural measures to control flood hazard, and increase in flood hazard arising from climate change.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027