Individual Projects

The main objective is to develop decision support tools for sustainable design and integrated management of the UWS. The sub-objectives are: 1) to define a simulation protocol to evaluate the performance of the system against several perturbations, 2) to use system’s analysis techniques and heuristic knowledge to facilitate the interpretation of results, and 3) to use multicriteria analysis to select the most suitable solution for each problematic situation. The provided solutions should maximize water quality (nutrients and micropollutants), minimize treatment costs and increase reliability.

The research objectives are 1) to reduce energy requirements of the whole integrated membrane process (biological aeration, MBR air scour and RO/NF pumping); 2) to optimize the biological nutrient removal and the removal of emerging priority pollutants, bacterial and viral indicators; 3) to develop and validate an automatic control system for the integrated control of the filtration process and the biological process; and 4) to study sustainable treatment options for the RO concentrate treatment and sludge wasted.

The research objective is to study the microbiology of methanogenesis in order to optimize biogas formation from organic rich wastewater under conditions of metals and chlorinated compounds biotransformation.

The research objective is to explore the possibilities of catchment based consents (CBC) and real–time–based–consents (RTBC) approaches and demonstrate, optimise and rank options based on their performance on a real catchment. The research will involve the use and development of existing integrated catchment models as the evaluation framework. A thorough analysis will be carried out of emerging CBC and RTBC approaches, plus investigation of their limited use in practice. Using techniques developed at the Centre for Water Systems, new approaches will be devised and tested with the goal to derive improved performance across the various key criteria.

The research objective is to investigate biodegradation mechanisms of target micropollutants by different approaches. Despite the uncertainties on the effects of micropollutants into the environment (i.e. pharmaceuticals) and the lack of knowledge regarding their degradation, increasingly stringent discharge limits are expected. Biodegradation in a WWTP is the only real micropollutant elimination step and, therefore needs to be optimized. However, knowledge of biodegradation mechanisms and operational parameters influencing biodegradation are lacking.

The research objective is to 1) identify the extent of sulfide emissions from characteristic Mediterranean sewers, 2) to design and apply best control strategies for the cases studied, and 3) integrate the knowledge in the tools for the management of Urban Water Systems.

The research objective is to develop, calibrate and validate an integrated CFD–ASM model for predicting nitrous oxide from WWTPs and to develop compartmental model to test mitigation strategies for reduction of nitrous oxide emissions and validate in practice for several case studies.

The research objective is to develop a set of benchmark simulation models (BSMs) for control strategy development and evaluation of urban water systems. The BSMs will serve as common software platform within the SANITAS project. ESRs 7, 8 and 9 will be working in parallel along two tracks, a bottom–up (BU) and a top–down (TD) approach. ESR 7 (TD) will focus on inclusion of catchment, sewer network, storm-tanks, combined sewer overflows and (receiving) water quality models into the BSMs as well as developing and testing control strategies on an UWS scale. The result will be a powerful and useful tool for the wastewater industry in Europe and open up significant new opportunities for educational purposes as well. The candidate will also undertake graduate education, by taking Ph.D. courses or in other forms.

The research objective is to develop a set of benchmark simulation models (BSMs) for control strategy development and evaluation of wastewater treatment systems. The BSMs will serve as a common software platform within the SANITAS project. ESRs 7, 8 and 9 will be working in parallel along two tracks, a bottom–up (BU) and a top–down (TD) approach. ESR 8 (BU) will focus on extending the existing the WWTP models by including new processes (pH, inorganic material and phosphorus removal in both activated sludge and anaerobic digestion), extended evaluation tools and novel plant–wide control strategies. The result will be a powerful and useful tool for the wastewater industry in Europe and open up significant new opportunities for educational purposes as well. The candidate will also undertake graduate education, by taking Ph.D. courses or in other forms.

The research objective is to develop a set of benchmark simulation models (BSMs) for control strategy development and evaluation of wastewater treatment systems. The BSMs will function as common software platform within the SANITAS project. ESR 7, 8 and 9 will be working in parallel along two tracks, a bottom–up (BU) and a top–down (TD) approach. ESR 9 (BU) will focus on: (1) extending the existing WWTP models by including new processes (occurrence, transport and fate of micropollutants, role of nitrite on nutrient removal processes and generation of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases); (2) extended evaluation tools; and (3) novel plant–wide control strategies. The result will be a powerful and useful tool for the wastewater industry in Europe and will open up significant new opportunities for educational purposes as well.

The objective of this PhD research project is to optimize the design and control of granular sludge anammox reactors for innovative nitrogen removal from wastewater. This involves minimizing energy requirements, greenhouse gas (N₂O and CO₂) emissions and sludge production, while maintaining the required process efficiency at a reasonable cost. This goal will be achieved through numerical simulation, based on physical-based process models.

The research objective is to develop qualitative models for risk assessment of operational problems of biological nature in UWS.

The research objective is to evaluate experimentally different combinations of advanced water treatment technologies for water reuse, including MBR, RO and biofilm technologies in terms of energy requirements, fouling and effluent quality for water reclamation. The evaluation of the effluent quality will include the elimination of micropollutants in the different treatment steps and total organic carbon content. The studied technologies will be compared with conventional technologies for water reuse.

Development of a phenomenological tool for the assessment of emissions from sewer systems by predicting water quality of sewer overflows in combination with existing hydraulic models. Secondly, development of a robust tool for sensitivity analysis and cost optimisation of the integrated urban water system able to derive the most cost-effective parameters of the integrated UWS model by adaptation and optimisation of the control strategies at hand for sewer system and WWTP.

The research objective is to examine the feasibility of successful management of comprehensive and integrated river rehabilitation, including supplying water from the river to multiple type users as part of the master plan, involving 7 municipalities, at least 5 governmental ministries, public and governmental infrastructure companies and a river authority. This research requires knowledge of diverse issues and understanding the need of bridging between disciplines, governance, legal systems and stakeholders. The researcher will study the economic and environmental costs and benefits gained from implementing theYarqon master plan, as well as future benefits from extending basin management to the entire basin.