Updating hydrology course in Australian universities : incorporation of social hydrology using a blended learning approach

Understanding the interaction of water with society is vital for achieving sustainable water resources development. There are many water engineering projects worldwide that have provided significant benefits to the community; however, there are examples where ill-planned water projects have undermined the environment and affected the community badly due to an inadequate understanding of the interaction of water with the environment and society. This paper presents an overview of hydrology courses in Australian universities. It has been found that most hydrology courses in Australia are biased towards mathematical computation and there is little focus on inter-disciplinary nature and social aspects of hydrology. A new hydrology course is proposed in this paper to overcome some limitations of the current hydrology courses in Australia. The new course focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of hydrology including social aspects of hydrology, in addition to mathematical aspects. It is proposed to initiate a forum of hydrology academics in Australia to prepare a hydrology course that can meet the need of water industry and research sectors, as well as the need of the society as a whole. A blended learning approach can be adopted to develop such a hydrology course by developing and sharing resources among various disciplines across different institutions.