TWENTY65 PhD Position - Dual-function rainwater harvesting/stormwater management (RWH/SWM) systems

TWENTY65 is a consortium of six UK universities, led by the University of Sheffield, exploring disruptive innovations to meet the sustainable water challenges of the future.  As a member of this exciting consortium, you will work with leading water academics in the UK and worldwide and have access to unprecedented collaboration opportunities with more than 100 industrial partners working together across a wide range of activities including an annual conference.  Training activities will include technical, policy, and social aspects alongside a cohort of students working across the TWENTY65 water domain.

This topic will complement work underway as part of TWENTY65 Theme 4: ‘The City as a Water Resource’. The aim of the PhD would be to develop modelling tools that would enable the performance of dual-function devices/systems to be quantified (and ideally optimised) in terms of both water supply and flood protection performance. The modelling tools would be used to evaluate/optimise alternative options, for example to consider whether large, communal, storage tanks/SuDS offer advantages over single household-based facilities. The modelling work will entail the continuous simulation (using e.g. MATLAB) of rainfall/storage/usage/spillage in response to long time-series rainfall to capture the effects of both routine and extreme rainfall events, using the concepts of ‘behavioural models’ from the RWH literature. Specific street-scale (retrofit) scenarios may be made available as part of the TWENTY65 project for validation/context.

One or more of the following research questions will be addressed in detail: Multiple sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) elements – extending the existing tools to include alternative SuDS devices, e.g. rain gardens, swales and street trees; Accurate characterisation of SuDS hydrological processes, e.g. evapotranspiration or infiltration; Interactions between natural surface runoff and SuDS runoff/formal and informal drainage; Interactions between SuDS and sewers and groundwater.

This 3-year project includes a tax-free stipend of £14,553 p.a. plus support for training, conferences, and related travel.

This PhD is available to UK or EU applicants only.   Start date 1 October 2018.

Shortlisting will take place as soon as possible after the closing date and applicants will be notified promptly. Shortlisted applicants will be invited for an interview to take place at the University of Sheffield or via webmeeting.

To apply, please e-mail your CV and a covering letter explaining your background and interest in this research to Virginia Stovin at v.stovin@sheffield.ac.uk