Unit information: Water Resources Management in a Changing World in 2020/21

Unit name	Water Resources Management in a Changing World
Unit code	CENGM0073
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24)
Unit director	Dr. Shams Rahman
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	Concept Design (CENG30014) or equivalent; Water Engineering (CENG20021) or equivalent and Engineering Mathematics 2 (EMAT20200) or equivalent
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering
Faculty	Faculty of Engineering

Description including Unit Aims

Water security is a major societal challenge globally under the current climate change and population growth scenarios. It is universally acknowledged that ensuring water security demands efficient management of our available resources. Yet, water resources assessment and management practices must be tailored to the hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions in different parts of the world. For example, there are stark differences between engineering concepts used for water management in developed (data-rich) and developing (data-poor) countries. This unit will cover the necessary tools for assessing and managing water resources in both data-rich and data-poor regions. Application of these tools in different areas of water resources engineering including floods and droughts will be demonstrated.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of this Unit, successful students will be able to:

1. Evaluate the relative importance of the key processes dominating the variability of freshwater resources in different hydro-climatic regions.
2. Apply the concepts of probability and statistics to assess the risks related to water resources e.g., floods and droughts.
3. Quantify and compare multiple impacts of water resource management decisions.
4. Evaluate the impacts of anthropogenic activities on water resources and engineering hydrology.
5. Analyse key international initiatives and frameworks design to address sustainability of water resources and adaptation/mitigation strategies.
6. Compare a wide variety of datasets (and their quality) that can be potentially used for water management.

Teaching Information

Online lectures (asynchronous and synchronous).

Assessment Information

Single coursework submission (100%)

Reading and References

CEH (1999). Flood Estimation Handbook, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

Chow, Ven T, Maidment, D.R. and Mays, L.W. (2013). Applied Hydrology. 2nd Edition, McGraw-Hill.

Shaw, E.M., Beven, K.J., Chappell, N.A. and Lamb, R. (2011). Hydrology in Practice. CRC Press.

Runoff Prediction in Ungauged Basins: Synthesis across Processes, Places and Scales, Edited by Günter Blöschl, Murugesu Sivapalan, Thorsten Wagener, Alberto Viglione, and Hubert Savenije, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 465 pp., ISBN: 978-1107028180

Falkenmark, M., and T. Chapman (1989), Comparative hydrology: An ecological approach to land and water resources. Unesco, 491 pp., ISBN 9231025716