The course aims at enhancing the comprehension of natural environmental processes and at introducing major traditional and remote environmental sensing techniques. The course provides concepts and methodologies to address engineering design in context where monitoring major environmental variables is necessary.
The course aim is the knowledge of hydrological processes monitoring. Specifically, the course will focus on instrumentations and sensing techniques useful for observing environmental parameters.

It is possible to identify three main aims:
Refresh of notions about hydrological processes and their modelling, with particular emphasis of river discharge and precipitations.
Learning about instruments and sensing techniques for hydrological observations.
Learning and applying innovative approaches based on image analysis.

Expected outcomes following the Dublin descriptors:

Knowledge and understanding.
hydrological phenomena, specifically, rainfall and runoff formation. Common practice of data collection and measurements in hydrology.

Applying knowledge and understanding
The concepts with a more technical and applicative implication (tools and approaches for the measurement and estimation of hydrological variables) will be consolidated through both traditional (exercises) and advanced (small experiments to be developed independently) practical labs.

Making judgements - Communication skills - Learning skills
Students will be asked to develop a project that, in addition to providing a practical example for estimating river flow velocity, will allow them to investigate on the role of the image analysis. The project will be assigned without a rigid scheme, students will be invited to identify a scientific question on which they can investigate with the software application. During the project they will identify the answer to the scientific question and motivate their conclusions. Setting small groups and interacting with the lecturer will stimulate Making judgements - Communication skills - Learning skills under the hydrological perspective.