Das Projekt "Snow-and ice-melt dynamics of Aosta Valley glaciers" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Verkehrsplanung und Transportsysteme durchgeführt. The project investigates the dynamics of snow- and icemelt of the glaciers in Aosta Valley that feed hydropower plants, and, specifically, the accuracy of parsimonious and physically oriented melt models in predicting the snowmelt, in view of their operational use for hydropower production.
Das Projekt "Planning the Flexibility of Wastewater Treatment Plants by means of Scenario Analyses" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Verkehrsplanung und Transportsysteme durchgeführt. The planning, sizing and building of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) is a costly and laborious task. WWTP are therefore constructed to be long- lasting (25-30 years) and are designed to cope with changes over time of selected factors (e.g. incoming load in 30 years, wastewater temperature in 30 years). Unfortunately, identifying the relevant factors for planning and design, their interconnections, and how they will change over time for such a long time span is an uncertain task. This can lead to over- or undersized WWTPs and to difficulties in adapting the WWTP to changing environmental conditions. The goal of the Ph.D. project is to provide a methodology to improve the way practitioners consider this long term uncertainty during the planning and design phase of a WWTP. The basic concept behind the methodology is the assumption that the future is not predictable. At most one can characterize the range of possible future scenarios that may be encountered. The flexibility of WWTP should enable the plant to adapt to the different and changing scenarios over time with minimal effort. Following questions are to be answered during the project: What are the relevant driving forces affecting the development of a WWTP during its operational life? How are these driving forces cross-linked? How can future scenarios for a WWTP be developed using the relevant driving forces? How can the scenarios be integrated into the planning and design process of a WWTP? What are the flexibilities of a WWTP? How can the flexibility of a WWTP be designed to cope with the expected scenarios? Keywords: Scenario Technique, Flexibility, Adaptive Management, Wastewater Treatment, Uncertainty, Design, Forecasting, Infrastructure