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Sustainable Design of Water Resources System is a subject included in the study plan of the master degree programs in Civil Engineering and Earth Resources Engineering at the University of Bologna. The course will be taught during 48 hours of frontal teaching, including lectures given by the teacher and exercises developed by collaborative work by students and the teacher.
The purpose of the course is to provide an overview of modern techniques for estimating design variables for water resources systems in the presence of human impact. Systems considered during the course will be natural and artificial river networks and water supply systems. Design variables that will be considered here are those quantifying water resources availability in natural and human impacted river networks, peak flow, and design hydrograph. The course will focus on rainfall-runoff modeling as a tool to assess river flow regime and human impact in ungauged basins; the impact of climate change will be discussed as well as techniques for increasing the resilience of water resources systems.
The course is included in the project InteractingAcademy@DICAM launched by Department DICAM in 2017 for promoting excellent and innovative teaching methods. InteractingAcademy@DICAM aims to promote teaching methods based on the active participation by students by using innovative technologies and social media. A fundamental role is played by the interaction between students and teachers. The project aims to integrate the traditional one-way flow of knowledge from teacher to student with a feedback flow from student to teacher and a cross flow among students. The target is achieved by assigning an active role to the student during his/her education. Innovative teaching methods may include:
- Videos of the lectures available online;
- Short presentations by students;
- Groups Question&Answers sessions "Challenge the teacher";
- Self evaluation by students;
- Interim check of students' opinion on the course.
The teacher will give to the students the option to evaluate their interacting activities as part of their final exam. This is an opportunity to make the evaluation of the student a continuous and interactive process along the semester. For more details on interactive activities see here.
The tutorials for the course will be delivered in the form of open web pages, open media and freely accessible videos of all the lectures, for the sake of developing academic education through fully open information.
Tutorial web pages for the lectures (the list will be updated as soon as lectures are given):
- Premise - The learning process adopted in the course
- Sustainability in the 21st century
- Sustainable management of water resources
- Assessing water resources availability - Inductive methods
- Assessing water resources availability - Deductive methods
- Model calibration and validation
- Design of river barrages
- Climate change and water resources
- Assessment of human impact on water resources
- Decision theory
- Salt water intrusion
Tutorial web pages for the practical exercises (the list may be updated during the course depending on the ambition and preferences of students):
- Short introduction to R and R Studio
- Exercise: estimation of the flow duration curve. Suggested R code.
- Exercise: Application of the linear reservoir rainfall-runoff model Mean areal rainfall and evapotranspiration data (hourly data for one year) River flow data (hourly data for one year) Suggested R code
- Calibration of the Hymod rainfall-runoff model. Suggested R code for resolving the exercise and applying the Hymod model. Mean areal rainfall and evapotranspiration data (hourly data for one year). River flow data (hourly data for one year).
- Application of pairwise comparison for decision making. The theory of pairwise comparison was only briefly introduced during the lectures. The text and suggested R code of the exercise give all the required information and details.
Additional tools, like self-evaluation tests and surveys of students' opinion are available on the official Moodle platform of the University of Bologna at this page, that is accessible with student's credentials. Please contact the teacher if you do not have access to this page.
The videos of the lectures are available at the link below: Playlist of Sustainable Design of Water Resources Systems 2019 Videos will be made available within one week after the lecture.
All the lectures will be delivered by Alberto and will take place in room 2.7A on Thursday and room 1.5 on Monday. The calendar of the lectures is given here below. Please note that changes may occur. Any variation will be communicated by the teacher to the students one week earlier at the latest. If the schedule is not significantly altered the course will terminate around the mid of May. Please note: 4 hours are still missing in the timetable. They will be added by scheduling 3 hours of teaching, instead of two, in dates that will be preliminarily agreed with the students.
- Feb 21, 2 hours
- Feb 25, 2 hours
- Feb 28, 2 hours
- March 4, 2 hours
- March 7, 2 hours
- March 11, 2 hours
- March 18, 2 hours
- March 21, 2 hours
- March 25, 2 hours
- March 28, 2 hours
- April 1, 2 hours
- April 4, 2 hours
- April 15, 2 hours
- April 29, 2 hours
- May 2, 2 hours
- May 6, 2 hours
- May 9, 2 hours
- May 13, 2 hours
- May 16, 5 hours (field trip)
- May 20, 2 hours
- May 23, 2 hours
- May 27, 2 hours (cancelled for European elections)
- May 31st, 3 hours
Learning outcome will be assessed through an oral examination. The exam typically lasts for about 20-30 minutes and is articulated through 3-4 questions. The student will be given the option to include interactive activities as part of the exam; in this case the duration of the oral examination may be shorter. The teacher may require to provide written response to one question and may ask to develop simple exercises in written form, involving simple calculations. One question aims to assess the ability of the student to deliver a clear and well articulated presentation (this question could be addressed with an interactive activity). Questions are related to the topics that are taught during the lectures and are described in the supporting documents. The teacher may ask questions not directly related to what has been discussed during the lecture in order to assess outstanding capabilities of the student to integrate the notions delivered by the teacher.
The highest score (30/30) is reserved to students who demonstrate a full knowledge of the notions, a very good ability to address questions through an efficient synthesis, and a very good presentation. The laude is reserved to students who demonstrate exceptional motivation and integrate the course content with additional notions by following their personal interest and attitude.
The teacher is available for a first pre-exam as soon as the lecture are finished. 3 official exam dates will be scheduled from the official closure of lecture until the end of July. Exam dates will be fixed in agreement with the students by the first week of April.
The teacher is available to provide clarifications on request, by receiving individual students or groups. The office of the teacher is located at the Direzione of the Department DICAM, ground floor, Via del Risorgimento. The entrance is from the internal courtyard looking towards Via Vallescura. Teacher can be contacted by email.
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