third network-wide quics training event held at sheffield university/file/... · 2016-01-18 · 3...

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Third network-wide QUICS training event held at Sheffield University

18th – 23rd October 2015 ‘The academics versus the real world’

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Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3

Sunday 18th October 2015 – Preparation for the training event ............................................................ 5

Monday 19th October 2015 ..................................................................................................................... 5

Tuesday 20th October 2015 ..................................................................................................................... 6

Wednesday 21st October 2015 – School outreach event ..................................................................... 10

Thursday 22nd October .......................................................................................................................... 14

Friday 23rd October ............................................................................................................................... 15

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... 16

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Introduction This report summarises the third network-wide QUICS training event, held at Halifax Hall Hotel near the University of Sheffield. The focus of this training event was ‘The academics versus the real world’. The aims of this training event were:

Providing the fellows with information on a number of industry case studies of asset management and implementation of research in practice

Providing fellows with some academic knowledge on pollutant and sediment transport, including presentation of a number of academic case studies

Improving the fellow’s oral presentation skills

Providing information about written and oral communication to different types of audience

Exercising communication between academics, water industry and ‘the general public’

Fellows prepared and provided outreach event to primary school children

Working on groupings to link research work and potentially lead to collaborative papers. The fellows and training providers are listed in Table 1 and the programme of the training events is described in Table 2. Table 1. List of fellows and training providers present at the University of Sheffield training event

Fellows present Training provided by:

Nazmul Beg, University of Coimbra Mieke van Dorpe, Aquafin

Vivian Camacho Suarez, University of Sheffield Paul Conroy, CH2M

Carla Camargos, Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen Elliot Gill, CH2M

Francesca Cecinati, University of Bristol Lorenzo Benedetti, Waterways

Mathieu Lepot, Delft University of Technology Ullrich Leopold, LIST

Mahmood Mahmoodian, LIST Simon Tait, University of Sheffield

Antonio Moreno Ródenas, Delft University of Technology

James Shucksmith, University of Sheffield

Manoranjan Muthusamy, University of Sheffield Alma Schellart, University of Sheffield

Kasia Sawicka, Wageningen University Will Shepherd, University of Sheffield

Ambuj Sriwastava, University of Sheffield Liz Sharp, University of Sheffield

Arturo Torres, LIST

Alexandre Wadoux, Wageningen University

Omar Wani, EAWAG

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Table 2. Timetable of 3rd QUICS training event held at the University of Sheffield

SUNDAY

(18/10/2015)

MONDAY

(19/10/2015)

TUESDAY

(20/10/2015)

WEDNESDAY

(21/10/2015)

THURSDAY

(22/10/2015)

FRIDAY

(23/10/2015)09.00 - 10.00

- Communication between academics,

industry & development of public policy,

media engagement

(Dr Sharp, USFD)

10.00 - 10.15

- Tea / Coffee Break

09.30 - 10.30

- Asset Management methods

(Paul Conroy, CH2M HILL)

09.30 -10.30

- Presentation Skills Training

(Dr Shucksmith, USFD)

10.15 - 11.15

- Communication between academics,

industry & development of public policy,

media engagement Continued...

(Dr Sharp, USFD)

10.30 - 11.00


11.15 - 11.30


11.00 - 12.00


Continued…

(Paul Conroy, CH2M HILL)

11.00 - 12.00

- Academic and commercial writing

(Elliot Gill, CH2M HILL)

11.00 -12.30

- Presentation Skills Training Continued..


11.30 -12.30

- Group exercise on collaborative

working

(Prof Tait, USFD)

12.30 - 14.00

- Lunch

12.30 - 14.00

- Lunch 13.30 - 14.30

- Academic and commercial writing

(Prof Tait, USFD)

15.00 - 15.15


15.00 - 15.30


16.00 - 17.00


(Mieke Van Dorpe, Aquafin)

16.00 - 17.00

- Implementation of research in Practice

(Dr Benedetti, Waterways)

16.15 - 16.45


17.15 - 18.15


Continued…

(Mieke Van Dorpe, Aquafin)

17.15 - 18.15

- Implementation of research in Practice

Continued…

(Dr Benedetti, Waterways)

16.45 - 17.45

- ‘The academics’: Solute transport


13.30 - 15.30

- The “real world” - Industry case

studies on water quality modelling

(Elliot Gill, CH2M HILL)

12.00 - 13.30

- Lunch

15.30 -16.00

- ‘wrap up & conclusions’ by ERs

14.30 -15.30

Introduction to uncertainty assessment,

a UK case study

15.15 - 16.15

- Integrated Catchment Modeling with

focus on fecal indicator

(Dr Shepherd, USFD)

14.00 - 15.00

- Integrated Catchment Modeling with

focus on fecal indicator

(Dr Shepherd, USFD)

15.30 - 16.00


18.30 - 19.30

- Preparation for outreach event

(ESRs)

17.30 - 18.30

- Powerpoint Presentation Skills

Training


17.00 - 17.15


08.30 - 10.30

- Presentation on Haute-Sûre catchment

data

(Ulrich Leopold, LIST)

10.30 - 11.00


09.00 - 09.30

- Welcome

(Dr Schellart, USFD)

08.30 - 09.30

- Particulate based transport

(Dr Schellart, USFD)

08.00 - 16.00

- SCHOOL OUTREACH EVENT

14.00 -15.00

- Discussion in small groups, how to

implement uncertainty assessment – All

ERs as group leaders.

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Sunday 18th October 2015 – Preparation for the training event James Shucksmith welcomed the fellows, and explained the ‘homework’ for the presentation skills training session on Thursday: prepare a 10-12 minute presentation about your work without the use of PowerPoint or Prezi (Fig. 1). This is a technique that has proved very useful in earlier PhD training networks to really help people to connect with the audience, and avoid an over-reliance on slides. Vivian Camacho provided more information on the school outreach event planned for Wednesday.

Fig. 1 Slide from James’ (PowerPoint…) presentation on ‘how to avoid death by PowerPoint’

Monday 19th October 2015 The Monday was dedicated to lectures and question-and-answer sessions from QUICS industry partners and associate partners (Fig 2). Dr Paul Conroy from CH2M provided an introduction to asset management in the UK water industry, explaining about ISO standards, The Common Framework, whole life costing, serviceability indicators and inspection techniques. Elliot Gill from CH2M explained about ecological problems related to wet weather related urban drainage discharges, the Water Framework Directive and the UK focus and response in the form of the Urban Pollution Management (UPM) manual. Elliot furthermore described a case study on a real-world application of an integrated urban drainage model in the city of Odense in Denmark.

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Fig. 2 Monday 19th Oct, a day of following lectures. Paul Conroy (CH2M) and Elliot Gill (CH2M) providing lectures Mieke van Dorpe (Aquafin) provided a presentation about asset management methods at Aquafin, who are responsible for the sewerage infrastructure linking municipal sewers and waste water treatment plants in Flanders, Belgium (Fig. 3). Mieke explained about the standard sewer system modelling and treatment plant design procedures followed at Aquafin, as well as specific water quality models developed at Aquafin.

Fig. 3 Extract from the lecture by Mieke van Dorpe, Aquafin.

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Ullrich Leopold from LIST provided a presentation and question & answer session about the Haute-Sûre data catalogue created for QUICS (Fig. 4), explaining about earlier water monitoring campaigns carried out in the area, as well as GIS data available for the catchment, and models already created for the catchment.

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Fig. 4 Screenshots of the Haute-Sûre data management system. Elliot Gill from CH2M and Simon Tait from the University of Sheffield provided presentations on commercial and academic writing. Elliot used materials that are also used by CH2M employees to learn how to structure and write different types of material used in commercial businesses. Simon provided an interactive session on tips, do’s and don’ts in academic writing and publishing (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 Advice, tips and tricks for both technical writing in commercial business and academic writing. On Tuesday afternoon a number of previous case studies on integrated water quality modelling and uncertainty analysis as part of integrated water quality modelling were presented by Alma Schellart from the University of Sheffield and Lorenzo Benedetti from Waterways. Alma presented a case study carried out by the University of Sheffield and the University of Bradford for a UK water company 2008. The water company had previously carried out a standard integrated

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urban drainage study to demonstrate compliance with the Fresh Water Fish Directive. The original study followed the methods described in the UK Urban Pollution Management Manual (this manual was described in more detail in the presentation by Elliot Gill on Monday). The case study describes a method to quantify levels of uncertainty likely to be encountered in the original study, and a method to express probability of failure of the water quality standards, instead of the pass-or-fail outcome from the original study (Fig. 6). Lorenzo first presented the ‘Kallisto’ project, on integrated modelling for the improvement of water quality in the river Dommel (also known in QUICS as ‘the Eindhoven catchment’, as Eindhoven is a major city along the relatively small river Dommel). This case study has some interesting conclusions: sewer Real Time Control and other in-sewer and Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) measures could reduce the problem with Dissolved Oxygen (DO), but not sufficiently. It was found that the remaining DO issue could be solved by in-stream aeration, which would be more effective than conventional measures such as increasing storage. This less-conventional solution was also found to have a 75% cost saving. Lorenzo’s second presentation explained about the inclusion of variability and uncertainty evaluations in Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) design by means of stochastic dynamic modelling, tested on the Eindhoven WWTP (Fig. 7).

Fig 6. Presentation of a case study that formed one of the sources of inspiration for starting the QUICS ITN

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Fig 7. Lorenzo Benedetti presented the Kallisto case study (top row) as well as a case study on variability and uncertainty evaluation in WWTP design (bottom row).

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Wednesday 21st October 2015 – School outreach event After several months preparation, the fellows and the organisers at University of Sheffield were very excited to welcome the Year 4 pupils (8 to 9 year old) of Benjamin Adlard Primary School. The fellows created a booklet for the children explaining the activities which can be found on the QUICS outreach webpage. The pupils went to the duck pond at Weston Park in Sheffield, to collect some water samples. After the water samples were collected, some fellows brought these to the laboratory at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield, and other fellows accompanied the pupils to a classroom. Vivian provided a short introduction explaining the activities planned in the laboratory (Fig. 8), followed by a lunch of pizza and cookies. After lunch, the pupils and the teachers were kitted out with laboratory coats. Four activities took place in the laboratory (Fig.9):

Filtration of the pond water, looking at the filters under a microscope and making drawings of the contents of the filter papers

Testing turbidity of the pond water using a turbidity probe, and comparing this with the turbidity of tap water

Testing the pH of the pond water and comparing this with the pH of tap water and lemon juice

Testing the Dissolved Oxygen (DO) level of the pond water and comparing with tap water

Making and decorating paper boats for a boat race in the flume, measuring the time the boats take to reach the end of the flume and calculating the velocity of the boats. A few bricks were added to the flume to create some interesting rapids.

After the activities we went back to the classroom for a drink of water and a wrap-up session.

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Fig. 8 Introduction to water quality and the laboratory experiments.

Final preparations in the laboratory and at the duck pond in Weston Park

Collecting water samples from the duck pond, samples collected and ready to go to University

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Preparations in the classroom: Vivian explained the activities, followed by great enthusiasm at putting on laboratory coats

Not just ducks in the water….! Antonio and Nazmul pointing out other beasts from the duck pond

Testing pH with Francesca and testing Dissolved Oxygen with Mahmood (and ‘Deo’ the DO-probe)

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Testing turbidity with Arturo and drawing some of the beasts found on the filter papers

Paper boat racing in the flume Fig. 9. Photos of the school outreach event held at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Sheffield University. A few days after the event, we received a bundle of fantastic thank you letters from the Year 4 pupils (Fig. 10), and some of the pupils would like to become scientists!

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Fig. 10. Some examples of the ‘thank you’ letters received from pupils of Year 4 pupils from the Benjamin Adlard Primary School

Thursday 22nd October After the excitement in the laboratory, it was back to the classroom for the QUICS fellows. The theme of Thursday was more academic lectures on water quality, and the presentation skills session. Simon Tait (University of Sheffield) prepared a lecture on particulate based transport, which was delivered by Alma Schellart (University of Sheffield). The lecture introduced the basic concepts of particulate transport, why it is important for water quality and where the current main sources of uncertainty are. Following the introduction provided by James on Sunday, the fellows delivered their 10 minute presentations without the use of any digital aids such as PowerPoint or Prezi. Each presentation was peer reviewed by the other fellows and James, Alma and Will. Will Shepherd provided a presentation of the findings and conclusions of the recently completed ‘Cloud to Coast’ research project, about predicting faecal indicator organism loads in the Ribble Estuary in the UK. For this project faecal indicator organism were monitored in both rural areas, urban areas and the estuary, and several models were integrated. James Shucksmith provided a lecture on the basic concepts of solute transport, including an interactive mixing exercise.

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Friday 23rd October Liz Sharp, a social scientist from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield provided an interactive session on interacting with the ‘general public’ in developing and implementing water policy (Fig 11). Liz described the case study of the Bradford Beck in the UK, and how a community group ‘Friends of Bradford Beck’ emerged and tried to make the Becks more ecologically and economically valuable to the city of Bradford. Liz supervised a role play exercise in which the fellows were asked to represent different relevant organisations in Bradford, such as Yorkshire Water, Bradford Council, Great Horton Business Association, Friends of Northcliffe Woods, etc. The fellows were asked to think about what the ‘hopes’ and ‘fears’ would be from each of these groups in respect to the ‘Friends of Bradford Beck’ and their aspirations. The second exercises consisted of preparing a bid for money from the Environment Agency to develop an action plan for the Bradford Beck. Liz concluded with some tips and ideas on how working with community groups and starting partnerships with members from the general public has to potential to deliver many benefits, but does come with challenges.

Fig. 11 Exercise on community groups and interactions between different stakeholders. As the final activity of this training event, Simon Tait provided a session prepared by the technical workpackage leaders. Prior to the training event in Sheffield, the fellows had been asked to complete a short template to help identify their key research questions, hypothesis and outline their research project and its outcomes. These templates were used as a starting point for a hypotheses discussion amongst fellows, and identifying where fellows could collaborate. The presentation skills training from Thursday came in useful again (Fig 12).

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Fig. 12. Simon Tait chairing a hypotheses discussion amongst fellows, with the fellows identifying new collaborations and strengthening existing collaborations.

Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 607000.

third network-wide quics training event held at sheffield university/file/... · 2016-01-18 · 3...

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