PE Water Resources & Environmental Depth (PM) Practice Problems

Practice Problems

Topic Areas

Actual Exam Questions

Exam Duration

Analysis and Design (4 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-AD-001	A wastewater treatment plant receives an average daily flow of 4.5 MGD with an influent BOD5 concent...	Easy
WR-AD-002	A municipality is designing a new water reclamation facility. The design population is 45,000 with a...	Easy
WR-AD-003	A treatment plant discharges to a stream classified for aquatic life support. The plant's NPDES perm...	Easy
WR-AD-004	A utility is comparing two pipe rehabilitation options for a 2,000-ft water main. Option A: CIPP lin...	Hard

Hydraulics - Closed Conduit (5 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-CC-001	A 12-inch diameter ductile iron pipe (C = 130) carries water at a flow rate of 1,200 gpm. What is mo...	Medium
WR-CC-002	Water flows through a 6-inch diameter horizontal pipe at 2.5 ft/s. The pipe has a Darcy friction fac...	Easy
WR-CC-003	A pipe system includes the following fittings: two 90° elbows (K = 0.9 each), one fully open gate va...	Easy
WR-CC-004	A centrifugal pump is being evaluated for a water supply application. The pump centerline is 8 ft ab...	Medium
WR-CC-005	A 24-inch diameter steel water transmission main carries water at a velocity of 8 ft/s. A downstream...	Hard

Hydraulics - Open Channel (5 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-OC-001	A trapezoidal channel has a bottom width of 6 ft, side slopes of 2H:1V, Manning's n of 0.025, and a ...	Medium
WR-OC-002	A rectangular channel is 10 ft wide and carries a flow of 200 cfs. What is most nearly the critical ...	Medium
WR-OC-003	A hydraulic jump occurs in a rectangular channel 8 ft wide. The upstream (supercritical) depth is 1....	Medium
WR-OC-004	A long rectangular concrete channel (n = 0.013) is 12 ft wide with a slope of 0.002 ft/ft. The chann...	Medium
WR-OC-005	A sharp-crested rectangular weir without end contractions (suppressed weir) has a crest length of 5....	Medium

Hydrology (7 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-HY-001	A 35-acre commercial development has a runoff coefficient C of 0.85. The time of concentration is 15...	Easy
WR-HY-002	A watershed has a drainage area of 2.5 square miles. Using the SCS dimensionless unit hydrograph, th...	Medium
WR-HY-003	A 120-acre watershed has a CN of 78. A storm produces 4.5 inches of total rainfall. Using the SCS Cu...	Medium
WR-HY-004	Using the Steel formula for rainfall intensity i = K/(t + b), where K = 150 and b = 20 (with t in mi...	Easy
WR-HY-005	A small watershed consists of 400 ft of sheet flow over dense grass (n = 0.24) with a slope of 2%, f...	Hard
WR-HY-006	A detention basin is being designed using the Modified Puls (level pool) routing method. At the begi...	Hard
WR-HY-007	A stream gage has 50 years of annual peak flow records. The log-Pearson Type III analysis yields a 1...	Medium

Groundwater and Wells (3 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-GW-001	Groundwater flows through a confined aquifer that is 30 ft thick. The hydraulic conductivity is 25 f...	Easy
WR-GW-002	A fully penetrating well pumps from a confined aquifer at a steady rate of 350 gpm. The aquifer tran...	Hard
WR-GW-003	A confined aquifer has a transmissivity of 2,500 ft²/day and a storativity of 0.0004. A pumping test...	Medium

Wastewater Collection and Treatment (6 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-WW-001	A 15-inch diameter sanitary sewer (n = 0.013) is laid on a slope of 0.003 ft/ft. What is most nearly...	Medium
WR-WW-002	A wastewater treatment plant receives 3.0 MGD with an influent BOD5 of 200 mg/L. The primary clarifi...	Easy
WR-WW-003	An activated sludge system has the following parameters: aeration tank volume = 1.2 MG, MLSS = 2,800...	Hard
WR-WW-004	A circular secondary clarifier must handle a peak flow of 6.0 MGD. The design surface overflow rate ...	Medium
WR-WW-005	A 30-minute settled sludge volume test yields 280 mL of settled sludge in a 1,000 mL cylinder. The M...	Medium
WR-WW-006	A wastewater treatment plant chlorination system applies a chlorine dose of 8.5 mg/L to the final ef...	Easy

Water Quality (3 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-WQ-001	A municipal WWTP discharges into a river. At the mixing point, the initial oxygen deficit (D₀) is 2....	Hard
WR-WQ-002	A wastewater treatment plant discharges 2.0 MGD of effluent with a phosphorus concentration of 4.0 m...	Medium
WR-WQ-003	A lake has a surface area of 500 acres and receives inflow from two tributaries. Tributary A has a f...	Medium

Drinking Water Distribution and Treatment (6 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-DW-001	A community has a population of 25,000 with an average daily demand of 150 gpcd. The water system mu...	Hard
WR-DW-002	In a water distribution network, a 12-inch main (C = 120) connects Node A (elev. 520 ft, pressure = ...	Medium
WR-DW-003	A water treatment plant uses alum (Al₂(SO₄)₃·14H₂O, MW = 594) as its primary coagulant. The optimum ...	Easy
WR-DW-004	A rectangular sedimentation basin must be designed to treat a flow of 5.0 MGD. The design overflow r...	Medium
WR-DW-005	A rapid sand filter has a surface area of 400 ft² and operates at a filtration rate of 4.0 gpm/ft². ...	Medium
WR-DW-006	A water utility must achieve 3-log inactivation of Giardia using free chlorine. The water temperatur...	Hard

Engineering Economics Analysis (1 problems)

ID	Problem	Difficulty
WR-EE-001	A city must choose between two options for a water main replacement. Option X costs $1,200,000 initi...	Medium

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Disclaimer: These are original practice problems created for educational purposes. They are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sourced from NCEES. Problem difficulty and topic distribution are designed to reflect the PE exam specification.