Urban Water Infrastructure Lab

About us

Our Lab aims to develop new knowledge, tools and methods to improve our management of water resources under variability, change and uncertainty. Our research addresses the challenges in representing variability and change in a way that directly relates to and informs water management decisions. We are a multi-disciplinary team and much of our group’s research is applied and done in partnership with industry.

Members of our group will focus on addressing key questions on how climate variability and change impact on catchment hydrology, environmental health and the built environment. We aim to incorporate this improved understanding of climate risks within decision science to inform policy.

Research areas

The objective of this group is to investigate ways to provide secure urban water supplies through integrated planning and management. Population growth in urban areas is increasing the demand for water, while climate change is reducing the availability of supplies from traditional fresh water sources.

We focus on integrating the whole water cycle in urban communities, developing diversified supply and treatment technologies to increase water security and develop integrated water systems model to understand the demand and supply, optimal water mix, water-energy nexus and interactions between various parts of water cycle. We also work to reclaim valuable resources from ‘waste’, including the water itself, and to eliminate contaminants from industrial, surface and groundwater sources.

This group is quite unique in the sense that 50% of members, both academics and students, are part of Department of Chemical Engineering. This is due to the need to consider water availability and water quality together in urban context for water supply as well as wastewater management.

Research focus

The group will focus on developing and implementing an Integrated Urban Water Management approach to urban water systems, in which processes are viewed through a water productivity lens that captures all economic, environmental and social aspects. This theme brings together the diverse research capabilities of the individual academics.