Facilities

Hydrosystems Laboratory Facilities

The Hydrosystems Laboratory, which has been in service since 1970, covers an area of approximately 11,000 square feet. The facilities available in the laboratory consist of several flumes, a rainfall generator, a stratified flow tank, and a water tunnel. The largest tilting flume is 161 ft. long, 6 ft. wide, and 4 ft. deep. This flume can be readily adapted to be used as a wave tank and for sediment transport studies. A set of twin volumetric tanks is also available for calibration of flow metering devices. Measuring equipment includes an assortment of current meters, sediment concentration and conductivity probes, a laser-based flow visualization system, a high-speed video camera, and several personal computers and workstations for in-situ data acquisition and analysis.

For more information on the Hydrosystems Laboratory, visit the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory Facilities Web site. The main Ven Te Chow Hyrosystems Laboratory Web site can be accessed at http://vtchl.illinois.edu/.

Auxiliary laboratory facilities include access to the College of Engineering machine and electronics shops for construction and maintenance of experimental equipment. Available computational facilities include personal computers, two home-built clusters, and access to supercomputers operated by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Water-related Institutes and Agencies on Campus

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a large land-grant institution and has the facilities and wide range of interest and activities one would expect. A number of these water-related institutes and agencies are of special importance to staff and students in WRES.

The Illinois Water Resources Center, located in the University, is the research institute for Illinois as designated under the Water Resources Research Act of 1964. It is an important source of water-related research funding.

On the campus are the three State Scientific Surveys: The Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois State Geological Survey, and Illinois Natural History Survey. Also, part of the state survey is the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center. These are related state research agencies with whom cooperative investigations are conducted and that provide additional research assistantship support.

The Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment (iSEE)  is a new campus-wide program created to an interdisciplinary approach to researching solutions for the world’s pressing sustainability, energy and environmental needs today and tomorrow. iSEE has five distinctive themes: Climate Solutions, Energy Transitions, Sustainable Infrastructure, Water and Land Stewardship, Secure and Sustainable Agriculture.  iSEE supports interdisciplinary research teams, sponsors workshops, and education and outreach.

The Illinois Water Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey is located on the University’s campus about five minutes walk from the Hydrosystems Laboratory. This is a Federal scientific agency with whom cooperative investigations are conducted and that provides additional research assistantship support.

The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service office also is located in Champaign-Urbana. This permits convenient and frequent communication and exchange of ideas between university personnel and agency professionals.