The course on Sustainable Design of Water Resources System is included in the study plan of the master degree programs in Civil Engineering (curriculum Infrastructure Design in River Basins) 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 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
- Assessing water resources availability - Inductive methods
- Assessing water resources availability - Deductive methods
- Assessment of human impact on water resources
- Model calibration and validation
- Design of river barrages
- Probability theory and extreme river flow estimation
- Sustainable management of water resources
Tutorial web pages for the practical exercises (the list will be updated as soon as lectures are given):
- Short introduction to R and R Studio
- Exercise: estimation of the flow duration curve. 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).
- Estimation of peak river flow for the Po River with the annual maxima method. River flow data (daily data of the Po River for 90 years)
The videos of the lectures are available at the link below: Playlist of Sustainable Design of Water Resources Systems Videos will be made available within one week after the lecture.
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.
- Feb 27, 3 hours
- Feb 28, 2 hours
- March 6, 3 hours
- March 7, 2 hours
- March 13, 3 hours
- March 20, 3 hours
- March 21, 2 hours
- March 27, 3 hours
- March 28, 2 hours
- April 3, 3 hours
- April 4, 2 hours
- April 10, 3 hours
- April 11, 2 hours
- May 2, 4 hours
- May 8, 3 hours
- May 15, 3 hours
- May 16, 2 hours
- May 19, 3 hours (Aula Trasporti)
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 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. 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.
A pre-exam is fixed on May 29th, 9:00, at Costruzioni Idrauliche, in Via del Risorgimento. Please send an email to the teacher if you wish to subscribe. Next exam dates will be:
- June 13, 9:00, at Costruzioni Idrauliche, Via del Risorgimento;
- June 27, 9:00, at Costruzioni Idrauliche, Via del Risorgimento;
- July 19, 9:00, at Costruzioni Idrauliche, Via del Risorgimento.
Please suscribe on Almaesami if you wish to attend. Please refer to Almaesami for the next exam dates, which will not be published here.
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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