Water Resources and Treatment module (CE40003)

In this module, you will be introduced to key concepts associated with the supply, treatment and management of water resources, as well as related environmental and health concerns. The first half of the module is focused providing an introduction to engineering hydrology to gain understanding of the hydrological cycle and the factors that affect the availability or scarcity of water resources, as well as calculation methods for flood routing and rainfall-runoff relationships. The second half of the module then considers factors affecting water quality, as well as the objectives of, and methods used in, drinking water treatment design based on physical, chemical and biological processes.

You will learn to carry out hydrological calculations, based predominantly on the establishing rainfall-runoff relationships within watersheds, as well as the routing of floods through reservoirs and within river channels You will also gain an understanding of integrated flood management and natural flood management. You will undertake detailed design of water treatment processes to ensure safe drinking water supplies, while gaining an appreciation of the levels of physical and biochemical processes required in wastewater treatment plants to ensure the safe direct reuse of wastewater or its disposal in the marine environment with minimal ecological and environmental impacts.

Topics include:

Understanding the Hydrological Cycle: methods to estimate water balance in a watershed; establishing rainfall-runoff relationships; construction of unit hydrographs and their use in estimating runoff hydrographs from rainfall events.

Flooding: routing of flood hydrographs through reservoirs; routing of floods in river channels; computer models used in flood routing and the assessment of flood risk; integrated and natural flood management; assessing the probability of flood events.

Drinking Water Treatment: physical, chemical and biological properties of drinking water sources; design of physical processes in water treatment plants including flocculation, sedimentation and filtration; the requirement for disinfection.

Wastewater Treatment, Reuse and Disposal: introduction to primary, secondary and tertiary treatment processes; direct and indirect reuse of treated wastewater; methods adopted for the disposal of treated wastewater (e.g. marine outfalls) and their design requirements.