Colin Rennie, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Associate Professor, Civil Engineering
crennie@genie.uottawa.ca, ph: 613-562-5800 ext 6124, fax: 613-562-5173

B.Sc.(Eng.) Co-op, University of Guelph, Environmental Engineering, 1995
M.A.Sc., University of British Columbia, Civil Engineering (Hydrotechnical), 1998
Ph.D., University of British Columbia, Civil Engineering (Hydrotechnical), 2002

Research Interests

Dr. Rennie has research experience in river engineering, environmental hydraulics, sediment transport, turbulence, and aquatic habitat. His research focuses on river morphodynamics and flow-sediment interactions resulting in bed material transport, utilizing high resolution field measurements with acoustic instruments, laboratory physical models, and three-dimensional numerical modelling. The transfer of bed material through a reach of river results in zones of erosion and deposition, and thus determines channel form. Understanding of bed material transport is commonly required for assessment of sediment load, river geometry and planform development, riverine habitat, and integrity of engineering works such as bridges and pipelines. Dr. Rennie is involved in the development of robust acoustic techniques for non-invasive measurement of bedload during channel-forming flows. He pioneered the use of acoustic Doppler current profilers (aDcps) for measurement of bedload transport. His work with aDcps has exended into spatial vector statistics and analysis of Global Positioning System data. He is also improving morphodynamic river modelling for prediction of channel change and habitat assessment. His goal is to understand the complex relations between the spatiotemporal distributions of bed material transport and fluid flow. Other current research includes flow and sediment transport through submerged groyne fields in river bends, earth-fill dam breaching, hydraulics of marine turbidity currents, and watershed water quality modelling. His research can be applied to a wide range of river issues, including river channel stability, flood control, hydroelectric development, fisheries, channel design and river corridor restoration, bridge crossings, navigation, source water availability and protection, and beach closures.

Dr. Rennie has collaborated with: Environment Canada Water Survey Branch, United States Geological Survey, Manitoba Hydro, City of Ottawa, St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (University of Minnesota), University of British Columbia, University of Western Ontario, Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research (University of Iowa), Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, University of Aberystwyth, and the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

Biography

Colin Rennie (Ph.D., P.Eng.) is Associate Professor, Associate Department Chair (Undergraduate), and Director of the Civil Engineering Hydraulics Laboratory at the University of Ottawa. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface. He is currently Chair of the Experimental Methods and Instrumentation committee of the International Association of Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR), and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Technical Committee on Hydraulic Measurements and Experimentation. He is a member of ASCE, IAHR, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, and the American Geophysical Union.

Professor Rennie began his career as a junior environmental engineer with government and consulting experience in hydrology, fish population and habitat assessment, mine reclamation, industrial wastewater treatment, air quality, and contaminated site remediation (1992-1996). He focused on river hydraulics and sediment transport as a graduate student at the University of British Columbia (1996-2002) with a Master's project on scour in salmon spawning habitat, and a Ph.D. study of the use of an acoustic Doppler current profiler (aDcp) for measurement of bedload. His interest in acoustic techniques continued during a post-doctoral term at the Physical Oceanography Department of Dalhousie University (2002-2003) where he did field and laboratory calibrations of a novel acoustic Doppler bedload sensor.   

Recent Publications

Book Chapters

Gaskin, J. Rennie, C.D. (in press) "Measurement of fluvial bedload with an aDcp" subchapter of "New Technologies for Monitoring Fluvial Sediment" J. Gray and J. Gartner (eds.), in The New Sedimentology to be published by Wiley.

Ramooz, R., Rennie, C.D., (in press) "Laboratory measurement of bedload with an ADCP", in Bedload-Surrogate Monitoring, eds. J. Gray and J. Laronne. United States Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report

Refereed Journals

Khosronejad, A., Rennie, C.D., (in press) “3D numerical modeling of unconfined and confined wall jet flow with two different turbulence models”, Can. J. Civil Eng.

Jamieson, E., Post, G., Rennie, C.D. (in press) “Spatial variability of three dimensional Reynolds stresses in a developing channel bend”, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.

MacVicar, B., Rennie, C.D., Roy, A.G. (in press) Discussion of "Unifying criterion for the velocity reversal hypothesis in gravel-bed rivers" by D. Caamano, J. M. Buffington, J. C.P. Liou, and S. Daley-Laursen, January 2009, Vol. 135, No. 1, p. 66-70. J.Hydraulic Eng. (ASCE).

Parker, G.T., Droste, R.L., and Rennie, C.D. (accepted) “Stochastic Calibration of Riverine Water Quality Models”. Water Environment Research.

Parker, G.T., Droste, R.L., and Rennie, C.D. (2009) “An Objective Test of Stochastic Behavior in Riverine Water Quality Models”. Water Science and Technology, 59(1):159-165.

Rennie, C.D., Hay, A. (in press) “Reynolds stress estimates in a tidal channel from phase-wrapped ADV data”, J. Coastal Research, in press, to appear in Vol 25, 2009.

Afzalimehr, H., Rennie, C.D. (2009) “Determination of bed shear stress using boundary layer parameters in a gravel-bed river”. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 54(1):147-159.

Sasal, M., Kashyap, S., Rennie, C.D., Nistor, I. (2009) "Artificial Neural Network for bedload estimation in alluvial rivers", J. Hydraulic Research, 47(2):223-232.

Ashmore, P., Biron, P., Eaton, B., Rennie, C.D. (2009) "Canadian research on fluvial sediment transport and morphology since 2003", Canadian Water Resources Journal, 34(2):149-162.

Zhang, Z., Bao, X., Rennie, C.D., Nistor, I., Cornett, A. (2008) "Water Wave Frequency Detection by Optical Fiber Sensor," Optics Communication, 281(24):6011-6015.

Rennie, C.D., Rainville, F. (2008) "Improving precision in the reference velocity of ADCP measurements using a Kalman filter with GPS and bottom track", J. Hydraulic Eng. (ASCE), 134(9):1257-1266.

Khosronejad, A., Rennie, C.D., Salehi Neyshabori, A.A., and Gholami,.I. (2008). "Three dimensional numerical modelling of sediment release in a water reservoir", J. Hydraulic Research,,46(2):209-223.

Rennie, C.D., Rainville, F., and Kashyap, S. (2007) "Improved estimation of ADCP bedload velocity using a real time Kalman filter". J. Hydraulic Eng. (ASCE), 133(12):1337-1344. Special Issue on Acoustic Measurements in Rivers, 2007.

Minor, B., Rennie, C.D., Townsend, R.A. (2007). "'Barbs' for river bend bank protection: application of a three-dimensional numerical model". Can. J. Civil Eng., 34:1087-1095.

Khosronejad, A., Rennie, C.D., Salehi Neyshabori, A.A., Townsend, R.D. (2007). "3D Numerical Modeling of Flow and Sediment Transport in laboratory channel bends". J. Hydraulic Eng. (ASCE), 133(10):1123-1134.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G. (2007). "A deconvolution technique to separate signal from noise in gravel bedload velocity data", J. Hydraulic Eng. (ASCE), 133(8):845-856,

Rennie, C.D., Rainville, F. (2006). Case study of precision of GPS differential correction strategies: Influence on aDcp velocity and discharge estimates. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering (ASCE), 132(3):225-234.

Rennie, C.D., Villard, P.V. (2004). Site specificity of bedload measurement using an aDcp. Journal of Geophysical Research (Earth Surface), Vol. 109, No. F3, F03003, 10.1029/2003JF000106, 29 July.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G. (2004). Measurement of bedload transport velocity spatial distribution. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 29(10):1173-1193.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G., and Church, M.A. (2002). Measurement of bedload velocity using an acoustic Doppler current profiler. J. Hydraulic Engineering, 128(5):473-483.

Millar, R.G., Rennie, C.D. (2001). Comment on: "Effects of hydraulic roughness on surface textures of gravel-bed rivers", by J.M. Buffington and D.R. Montgomery. Water Resources Research, 37(5):1527-1528.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G. (2000). Spatial variability of stream bed scour and fill: A comparison of scour depth in chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) redds and adjacent bed. Canadian J. of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 57(5):928-938.

Rennie, C.D. and Millar, R.G. (1999). Discussion of: "Estimation of gravel-bed river flow resistance", by H. Afzalimehr and F. Anctil. J. Hydraulic Engineering, 125(12):1317-1319.

Refereed Journals Submitted

Parker, G.T., Rennie, C.D. and Droste, R.L., Model Structure and Uncertainty for Stochastic Non-Point Source Modeling Applications, Hyd. Sci. J., submitted Oct. 2009.

Ebisa Fola, M., Rennie, C.D. Downstream hydraulic geometry of clay dominated cohesive bed rivers. J.Hydraulic Eng. (ASCE), in second review.

Kahyap, S., Doutreleau, B., Bou-Botros, G., Rennie, C.D, Townsend, R.A.. A semi-permanent method for fixing the sediment bed in laboratory flumes. J. Hydraulic Res., in second review.

Rennie, C.D., Church, M. Mapping water and sediment flux in a large river reach using an aDcp. J. Geophysical Research – Earth Surface, in revision.

Parker, G.T., Droste, R.L., and Rennie, C.D. Coupling model Uncertainty for Coupled Rainfall/Runoff and Surface Water Quality Models. Basin Research, submitted Oct. 2009.

Jamieson, E.C., Rennie, C.D., Jacobson, R.B., Townsend, R.A. Evaluation of ADCP bed velocity in a large sand bed river: Moving versus stationary boat conditions, J.Hydraulic Eng. (ASCE), submitted Oct. 2009.

Conference Proceedings

Kashyap, S., Constantinescu, G., Tokyay, T.E., Rennie, C.D., Townsend, R. (accepted) Simulation of Flow around Submerged Groynes in a Sharp Bend using a 3D LES Model, River Flow 2010.

Gaskin, J., O. Seidou, C. Rennie, (in press) “At-Site Extreme Flow Prediction using Monte Carlo Importance Sampling for the lognormal and gamma distributions”, EWRI International Conference Jan 5-7, 2010 - Chennai, India - Conference in Water Resources and Environment

Jamieson, E., Rennie, C.D., Townsend, D.R.. (2009). “Design of a ‘stream barb’ installation for City of Ottawa’s Sawmill Creek: A case study”, River Basin Management V.

Parker, G., Rennie, C.D., (2009). Changes in Deconvoluted Baseflow Rates in Canada, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

Tilston, M., Post, G., Rennie, C.D., Arnott, W. (2009). On the Nature of Coherent Turbulent Structures in Channel Bends: Burst-Sweep Orientations in Three-Dimensional Flow Fields, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

Kashyap, S., Post, G., Rennie, C.D., Townsend, R., (2009). Simulation of Flow Structures in a Hydraulically Narrow Alluvial Channel Bend using a 3D RANS Model, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

Orendorff, B., Al-Riffai, M., St-Germain, P., Rennie, C.D., Nistor, I. (2009). The effects of initial breach geometry on dam breach morphology, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

Ebisa Fola, M., Rennie, C.D., (2009). Downstream hydraulic geometry of consolidated clay-bed rivers, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

Al-Riffai, M., Orendorff, B., St-Germain, P., Nistor, I., Rennie, C.D. (2009). Influence of compaction and various toe-drain filters on the slope failure in breach channels of overtopped earth embankments - An experimental study, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

MacVicar, B., Rennie,C.D. (2009). Lateral distribution of turbulence and secondary currents in non-uniform open channel flow, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

Jamieson, E., Rennie, C.D., Jacobson, R. (2009). Evaluation of flow structure and bed load velocity in the vicinity of a submerged wing dike in a large sand bed river, 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress - Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment, Vancouver.

Khosronejad, A., Rennie, C.D., (2009). “Mathematical modeling of a real jet flow” Third International Conference on Modeling, Simulation, and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO'09), American University of Sharjeh, Emirates.

Rennie, C.D., (2008). Uncertainty of ADCP Spatial Velocity Distributions. 6th International Symposium on Ultrasonic Doppler Methods for Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Engineering, Sep. 2008, Prague.

Parker G, Droste RL, Rennie CD. (2008) "An Objective Test of Stochastic Behavior in Riverine Water Quality Models", Internat. Water Association World Water Congress, Vienna.

Parker G, Droste RL, Rennie CD. (2008) "Stochastic Calibration of Riverine Water Quality Models", Water Environmet Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, Chicago.

Sasal, M., Nistor, I., Rennie, C.D. (2008) "Soft Technique Approach to the Determination of the Diffusion Coefficient over Rippled Beds in the Coastal Environment", 2008 Canadian Coastal Conference, Vancouver. (in press)

Jamieson, E., Rennie, C.D., Ramooz, R. (in press) "Verification of in-situ ADCP bedload transport measurements using digital video analysis", River Flow 2008, Cesme-Izmir,Turkey.

Khosravan, S., Rennie, C.D. (2007) "Optimal vector interpolation of asynoptic spatial survey of vector quantities for interpolating ADCP water velocity measurements", Hydraulic Measurements and Experimental Methods 2007 (ASCE/IAHR) Book of Extended Abstracts, Lake Placid, NY, pp.233-237.

Rennie, C.D. (2007) "Spatial distributions of shear and sediment transport in a large wandering gravel bed river", Hydraulic Measurements and Experimental Methods 2007 (ASCE/IAHR) Book of Extended Abstracts, Lake Placid, NY, pp.106-111.

Kashyap, S., Rennie, C.D., Rainville, F. (2007) "Development of a real time moving bed prediction based on Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler data only", Hydraulic Measurements and Experimental Methods 2007 (ASCE/IAHR), Book of Extended Abstracts, Lake Placid, NY, pp.403-408.

Post, G., Rennie, C.D. (2007) "The distribution of Reynolds stresses in a model channel bend measured using ADVs", Hydraulic Measurements and Experimental Methods 2007 (ASCE/IAHR) Book of Extended Abstracts, Lake Placid, NY, pp.332-338.

Ramooz, R., Rennie, C.D. (2007) "Laboratory ADCP bedload measurements: Comparison with capture rates and dune tracking", Hydraulic Measurements and Experimental Methods 2007 (ASCE/IAHR) Book of Extended Abstracts, Lake Placid, NY, pp.160-165.

Khosronejad, A., Rennie, C.D., (2007), "Computation of Scour Depth and Width around Pile Group Using Intelligent Systems: ANNs", 5th IAHR Symposium on River, Coastal, and Estuarine Morphodynamics, 2007, Enschede, Netherlands.

Rennie, C.D., Church, M. (2007) "ADCP shear stress and bedload transport in a large wandering gravel-bed river", 32nd IAHR Congress, 2007, Venice.

Khosronejad, A., Rennie, C.D., S. Moghimi (2007) 3D Numerical Modeling of Flow field and Sediment Transport in Laboratory Reservoir Flushing Process, 32nd IAHR Congress, 2007, Venice.

Minor, B., Jamieson, E., Rennie, C.D., Townsend, D.R.. (2007) "Three-dimensional flow in a barb field", River Basin Management IV, (Ed.) Brebbia, C.A., Katsifarakas, K.L., WIT Press, Southampton, pp.371-380.

Ramooz, R., Rennie, C.D., (2007) "Laboratory measurement of bedload with an ADCP", International Bedload Surrogate Monitoring Workshop, Minneapolis.

Minor, B., Rennie, C.D., Townsend, D.R.. (2006) "Barbs (Submerged Groynes) for River Bend Bank Protection: Application of a Three-Dimensional Numerical Model", Proceedings, 3rd International Conference on Scour and Erosion 2006, Amsterdam, pp. 461-466.

Khosronejad, A. and Rennie, C.D. (2006) "Experimental study of flow field and sediment transport around bridge abutments", Proceedings, 3rd International Conference on Scour and Erosion 2006, Amsterdam.

Khosronejad, A., Rennie, C.D., Salehi Neshabori, A., and Townsend, R.D. (2006) "3D Numerical Modeling of Flow and Sediment Transport in Channel Bend". 7th International Conference on Hydroinformatics 2006, Nice, France.

Rennie, C.D. and Rainville, F. (2006). Real time estimation of ADCP bedload velocity using a Kalman filter. ASCE EWRI World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2006, Omaha.

Rennie, C.D. (2007). Discussion of "Non stationarity of basin scale sediment delivery in response to climate change" T. Coulthard et al. and "Predicting watershed scale fluvial and ecological responses to land use and climate changes in gravel-bedded piedmont streams in the mid Atlantic region, USA" by J. Pizzuto et al. In Gravel-Bed Rivers VI.

Rennie, C.D. (2007). Discussion of "Multiple scales in rivers", by M. Church. In Gravel-Bed Rivers VI.

Rennie, C.D. (2007). Discussion of "Gravel-bed rivers at the reach scale", by R. Ferguson. In Gravel-Bed Rivers VI.

Gaueman, D. and Rennie, C.D. (2005). A comparison of two field studies of acoustic bed velocity: grain size and instrument frequency effects. In 8th Federal Interagency Sedimentation Conference.

Rennie, C.D., Rainville, F. (2005). Improving DGPS for ADCP velocity measurement using a Kalman filter. In 17th Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, Augus 17-19, Edmonton, AB, 10 p.

Khosravan, S., Rennie, C.D. (2005). Analysis of vector statistics for analysis of ADCP vector velocity fields. In 17th Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, Augus 17-19, Edmonton, AB, 8 p.

Nistor, I., Rennie, C.D. (2005). Analyse de la rupture d'un barrage par submersion. In 1st CSCE Specialty Conference in Infrastructure Technologies, Management and Policy, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, June 2-4, 2005, Toronto, ON, 8 p.

Rennie, C.D., Villard, P.V. (2003). Bedload measurement in both sand and gravel using an aDcp. In 16th Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference. Canadian Society for Civil Engineers, October 22-24, 2003, Burlington, ON, 10 p.

Rennie, C.D., Villard, P.V. (2003). "Site specificity of bedload measurement using an aDcp". In Proceedings of Congress of International Association for Hydraulic Research, 30, Theme D. Hydroinformatics and advanced data technology in engineering practice, Korfiatis, G., Christodoulou, G., eds., IAHR, p. 961-968.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G. (2002). "Bedload transport velocity: Finding the signal amidst the noise". In Hydraulic Measurements & Experimental Methods 2002 (CD-ROM). ASCE and IAHR, July 28 - August 1, 2002, Estes Park, Colorado, 10 p.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G. (2002). "Spatial distribution of bedload transport velocity using an acoustic Doppler current profiler". In Hydraulic Measurements & Experimental Methods 2002 (CD-ROM). ASCE and IAHR, July 28 - August 1, 2002, Estes Park, Colorado, 10 p.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G., and Villard, P.V. (2001). Laboratory measurements of bedload transport velocity using an acoustic Doppler current profiler. In 15th Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CD-ROM), Balachandar, R. (ed.), May 30 - June 2, 2001, Victoria, BC, 8 p.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G. (2001). Measurements of gravel bedload transport velocity using an Acoustic Doppler Profiler. In Gravel-bed Rivers 2000 CD-ROM, Nolan, T. and Thorne, C. (eds.), A Special Publication of the New Zealand Hydrological Society.

Rennie, C. (2001). Discussion of "The consequences of unsteady sediment transport in braided rivers", by T. Hoey, J. Cudden, and A. Shvidchenko. In Gravel-Bed Rivers V, Mosley, M.P. (ed.), New Zealand Hydrological Society, pp. 140-141.

Rennie, C. (2001). Discussion of "River science and Fraser River: Who controls the river?", by M. Church. In Gravel-Bed Rivers V, Mosley, M.P. (ed.), New Zealand Hydrological Society, pp. 627-628.

Rennie, C.D., Fisher, T.S.R., and Millar, R.G. (1999). Spatial variability of turbulent velocity structure in a natural river. In Proceedings of the 1999 ASCE International Water Resources Engineering Conference (CD-ROM), Walton, R. and Nece, R.E. (eds.), American Society of Civil Engineers, 10 p.

Rennie, C.D., Millar, R.G. (1998). Scour depth of salmon redds relative to nearby bed. In Water Resources Engineering 98: Proceedings of the International Water Resources Engineering Conference, Abt, S., Young-Pezeshk, J. and Watson, C.C. (eds.), American Society of Civil Engineers. pp.730-735.

Millar, R.G., Rennie, C.D. (1998). Equilibrium gravel bedload transport. In Water Resources Engineering 98: Proceedings of the International Water Resources Engineering Conference, Abt, S., Young-Pezeshk, J. and Watson, C.C. (eds.), American Society of Civil Engineers. pp.712-717.

Theses

Rennie, C.D. (2002). Non-invasive measurement of fluvial bedload transport velocity using an acoustic Doppler current profiler. Ph.D. Thesis, University of British Columbia, 232 p.

Rennie, C.D. (1998). Bed mobility of gravel rivers: Scour depth of chum salmon redds, and equilibrium bedload transport. M.A.Sc. Thesis, University of British Columbia, 169 p.

Courses Taught

CVG2145 Civil Engineering Mechanics

CVG3116 Hydraulics

CVG4001 Introduction to Civil Engineering Design

CVG4002 Civil Engineering Design Project

CVG5162 Advanced River Hydraulics

CVG5160 Sediment Transport