Water is essential for drinking, industry, nature, and food production. However, water problems are escalating globally. Overconsumption of water threatens both rural and urban areas. At the same time, floods and droughts are increasing in severity, often following one another. Pollutants like antibiotic residues, PFAS, and pharmaceuticals are emerging in our water, straining water treatment processes and posing serious risks to water quality and public health.
More engineers in the field of Water Resources Engineering are needed to tackle the challenges of urban flood and drought prevention, water treatment, and water management to ensure safe, fresh, water access to all.
Key features
➨ Study urban and rural water cycles, including rainfall, evaporation, groundwater, surface water, urban drainage, municipal sewage, and water supply. ➨ Develop technologies for designing water systems, accounting for human influences. ➨ Focus on water monitoring, resource management, infrastructure asset management, treatment, and supply. ➨ Assess and implement water-sensitive urban design, efficiency, reuse, and resource recovery. ➨ Prevent and mitigate negative impacts of water engineering, and quantify risk assessment methods.
Track Curriculum
Stepping Stone Module: Water Resources Engineering
This module sets the foundation for the Water Resources Engineering track by exploring how water resources engineers protect society from water-related challenges such as droughts, floods, and pollution, ensuring access to safe water. You will complete real-life cases and projects, and data-driven analysis to address environmental quality, hydrological processes, and system design in urban and natural settings. The module takes place over Q2 and Q3.
A-Modules
Upon starting Q3, you choose an A-module which matches your interests and learning goals, defining your learning path within the track. The A-module allows you to deepen your expertise and skills within a specific field of water resources engineering. There are three options you can choose from.
This module tackles the fundamental principles that drive key physicochemical and biochemical process in water-based ecosystems. You will learn how to derive the stoichiometry and kinetics of (bio)chemical reactions, and how to implement mass balances to design engineering solutions for water treatment and product recovery .
This module covers the design and rehabilitation of urban water infrastructure, emphasizing integrated water management for sustainability. It addresses drinking water supply, wastewater and stormwater systems. In this module you will learn how to design, model and monitor these systems whilst analysing relevant water quantity and quality processes.
This module focuses on understanding and managing floods and droughts in river basins, emphasizing the impacts of land use and climate change. You will learn hydrological processes, observation and remote sensing techniques, and modelling methods to evaluate management strategies, considering ethical aspects. Key topics include vegetation's role, flood and drought management, and data assimilation.
B-Modules
In Q4, you choose a B-module. The module links the skills and knowledge from the A-module to specific applications, developing interventions to real-life problems. Each module includes a workshop on ethical responsibility of engineers. Some include field visits, and/or lab experiments. There are four options you can choose from.
This module focuses on designing water treatment plants and researching treatment technologies for groundwater, surface water, sewage, and industrial water. Topics include membrane filtration, advanced oxidation, and anaerobic treatment, emphasizing health impact, resource recovery, and sustainability. In addition to project work and lectures, the module offers field visits to water treatment plants, experimental work in the laboratory and modelling exercises.
This module explores urban water infrastructure, emphasizing optimization of performance by RTC, optimization of service life by asset management and future proofing by adaptation to climate change and circularity. You will learn asset management, data-driven operations, and transition management while addressing urban flood risk, pollution management, and public health concerns .
In this module you will explore human-modified regional water systems, focusing on hydraulics, ground water, ecology, and morphology. You’ll learn to model and optimize water flows, addressing environmental impacts and ethical responsibilities in engineering practice.
Regional, river, and subsurface water infrastructures are the focus of this module. You will analyse, model, and propose improvements for water systems, addressing climate and socioeconomic impacts. You’ll also design control algorithms for optimal system performance in dynamic environments.
One year we see extreme drought and record temperatures, the next we see rainfall of such intensity that our cities flood…. there is a great need for engineering solutions to help humans adapt to living in these extreme conditions.
After completing the electives and cross-over section of the general programme in Q5, you start working on your master’s thesis. The preparation for the master thesis starts in Q6 with writing your own workplan. There are a multitude of opportunities. Below are just a few highlighted projects of previous students.
Our students always have a lot of stories to tell about their projects, internships, research and life as a student! They discover, collaborate and create solutions for society. Learn more about their experiences below!
