Best career outlook/quality of life? Hydrologist vs CE/IE/System Dinamics

[Shake]

As you can see (from my signature) I have been incredibly lucky and find myself having to choose among several options. (in a million years I though I'd be in this position!).

 

I applied to programs in Civil & Environmental Engineering and interdisciplinary Hydrology/Water Resources programs. Although I have a background mostly in forestry and environmental sciences I find myself more interested in matters related to the urban environment (infrastructure/management) and the impacts of increased urbanization and population.

 

In terms of research most of my options will basically have to do with watershed assesment, floor risk and impacts and will involve the use of GIS, remote sensing and hydrologic modeling (SWAT, HEC models, etc). I feel comfortable with that, although I do not get all that super super excited about it.

 

On the other hand, the one program I keep going back to feels very different from all the others and much less related to my background.

It also deals with hydrology and hydraulics but is also very focused on systems dynamics and computing (Complex adaptive systems, Evolutionary algorithms, genetic programming, parallel computing, etc). I had to look hardly into it because I didn't even know what all that was about.  I feel like it is a mix of Civil Engineering and Industrial Engineering.

 

It sounds like it could be an amazing career change but I don't really know what to expect on career outcomes in case I do not want to stay in academia. I feel those two paths will lead me to very different places but don't really know what to expect.

 

Any thoughts on the matter would be really appreciated and thank you for allowing my rambling! :-)

Edited March 28, 2014 by Shake