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Advanced Water Cycle Management Course

The Advanced Water Cycle Management Course is an international course designed to upgrade your water management skills and give you with an overview on and substantial knowledge of water resource management, water distribution and wastewater handling including resource recovery.

The course will run from 11 - 24 August 2024.

See course flyer here.

Course content and teaching

The course provides you with a review of three main topics:

1.     Groundwater resource management

2.     Water distribution

3.     Wastewater handling, including resource recovery

What will you learn?

You will gain experience in applying the established engineering knowledge, knowhow and state of the art components in the whole water cycle, from abstraction to the delivery of the cleaned wastewater back to nature.

You will also learn how to analyze advantages, problems and principles in water related issues, and understand how to minimize unnecessary water and energy consumption and how to turn wastewater treatment plants into being net energy producing. 

You will experience how the private sector is working in a unique and close collaboration with the public sector as well as with the regulatory authorities and ministries in Denmark.

Furthermore, you will tap into how various types of instruments and components used in water management are operated in concert. And you will be involved in teamwork challenges associated with water management as well as an opportunity to give input on how to solve them. 

The course offers social events and great networking opportunities and includes several important site visits to relevant industry and facility players.  

The teaching

At the course, you will meet a great mixture of classic lectures, interactive classroom teaching, site visits and group work exercises. 

The course is taught in an informal atmospheres by leading researchers and industry experts. 

The structure

The course is divided into three parts all connected to each other:

Part 1 - Holistic overview and understanding of the water flow

Initially, the course provides you with a very important holistic overview and understanding of the water flow all the way from detection, mapping, management and distribution to the final flow into the wastewater treatment and/or resource recovery plant. 

Part 2 - Special track - deeper insight

With the basis in the holistic overview of the water flow you will take a focused dive into one of the three main topics adding further specialized knowledge to your new water management skills.

The topics are:

  • Ground water detection, mapping and management
  • Water distribution
  • Wastewater management and resource recovery

Part 3 - Group assignment - bring your knowledge into play

You will finish the course with a team based case-challenge bringing you knowledge and innovative ideas into play. The case-challenge is presented by an oral team presentation of your solution(s).

Tracks

Here you can read a brief description of the special tracks at the course.

Ground water management:

At the Ground water management track you will get a comprehensive insight in the process of mapping and protecting groundwater resources. You will learn about the water cycle and geology in general and how to map aquifers and aquitards with different mapping methods. You’ll also learn about data relevant for building 3D geological models and get insight in the methods used to acquire these data, including some of the newest technologies.

The track includes hands on experience in geological modeling and how to use these models in the groundwater administration process.  

Water distribution:

At the Water distribution track you will get a valuable insight in how to run a sustainable water distribution network with efficient leakage management, pressure optimization, asset management and at the same time challenge your creative ideas for new ways of addressing water use, water scarcity and rehabilitation of the infrastructure.

The track includes group exercises and discussions.

Wastewater treatment:

The wastewater treatment and resource recovery track is focusing on the functioning of conventional wastewater treatment plants for municipal water, and issues like resource recovery including biogas production, greenhouse gas emission, micro-contaminant removal, and control strategies will be discussed. Alternative means of water purification such as constructed wetland will be presented. Part of the track will be on sewer design and how to avoid excessive corrosion due to hydrogen sulfide formation.  

A modern wastewater treatment plant will be visited  

How to apply and what to consider:

Once admitted to the course you will be asked to priorities your request for the special tracks. We aim to allow as many of our participants to obtain their first choice priority. 

We encourage you to consider to apply for a track outside of your current area of expertise - it is our experience that this might provide for a greater learning experience. 

Course programme

The overview of the programme for 2022 is available here

View the programme for 2019 for inspiration here

View the programme for 2021 for inspiration here

Contact

Course Coordinator

WATEC Centre manager, Daniel Spelling Clausen
Email: dsc@ecos.au.dk

AU Summer University

Email: SummerUniversity@au.dk

Academic coordinator

Associate Professor Thomas Seviour
Email: twseviour@bce.au.dk