Baker Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (BEHL) is a 3100 square ft floor area facility, housing several research flumes and a wide variety of advanced research instrumentation and hydraulic measurement systems. The laboratory is devoted to environmental hydraulics related research. This laboratory is managed and directed by Dr. P. Diplas of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. The Mechanical Engineering department, through Professor C. L. Dancey, collaborates with Dr. Widdowson on hydraulic research.

The facilities and instrumentation include:

• A small scale water tunnel for research and demonstration.
• A moderate scale (20 ft long, 1.5 ft wide, 2 ft deep) research flume.
• A larger scale (68 ft long, 2 ft wide, 1 ft deep) research flume.
• A large scale (70 ft long, 4 ft wide, 2 ft deep) research flume.
• A three-component, color-separated, Laser Doppler Velocimeter system with both counter and frequency domain signal processing and state-of-the-art data acquisition hardware and software and data analysis software.
• A three-component acoustic Doppler velocimeter with data acquisition hardware and software, and data analysis software.
• A multi-head, ultrasonic velocity profile (UVP) monitor capable of measuring a single component of water velocity instantaneously along a line within the flow. With multiple transducers heads measurement of several velocity components can be measured instantaneously along different lines within the flow. This instrument is particularly well suited for transient, non-uniform flows, where an entire velocity profile within the flow can be measured instantaneously.
• Teledyne (broad band) Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) and the echosounder for field work
• Low-range, submersible, miniature size dynamic pressure sensors.
• TSI Model DL-100, External Input Module : For external data (e.g., temperature, pressure, etc.), a four channel analog-to-digital and digital-to-digital input module, enables simultaneous multiparameter measurements.
• A variety of other instruments including: Prandtl tubes, electronic depth gages, manometers, oscilloscopes, power supplies, and miscellaneous optical elements among other items.