Department Urban Water Management

Managing Uncertainty in the Design of Urban Water Infrastructure

When engineers plan and design storm sewers, water reservoirs, treatment reactors they are, in a fundamental way, confronted with a wide spectrum of uncertain factors. These can include forecasting uncertainties (e.g. population to be served in 30 years), modeling uncertainties (e.g. parameter uncertainty in an activated sludge model), measurement errors (e.g. flow and concentration measurements at the inflow to a wastewater treatment plant), etc.

The focus of this PhD project is set on the following modeling aspects during the design stage of urban water infrastructure (probabilistic design):

• Uncertainty Classification
• Uncertainty Propagation
• Uncertainty Management

The feasibility of explicit consideration of uncertainties in the design phase is explored and compared with traditional design concepts that usually treat uncertainty in an implicit way.

Case studies may include Combined Sewer Overflow Detention, Water and Wastewater Treatment and Storm Sewer Design.