Course syllabus
Course-PM
ACE090 ACE090 Sustainable urban water engineering lp2 HT22 (7.5 hp)
Course is offered by the department of Architecture and Civil Engineering
Contact details
- examiner: Ann-Margret Strömvall
- teachers: Ann-Margret Strömvall, Anna Norén, Jesper Knutsson, Glenn Johansson, Urban Wünsch, Amir Saeid Mohammadi, Ali Esmaeeli, Maria Polukarova, Emilié Sörberg.
- course coordinator: Michelle Friedrich
- guest lectures: Helen Galfi, Thomas Pettersson, Britt-Marie Wilén
Course purpose
The course aims to provide students with an advanced understanding of urban water and the importance of considering contamination in the planning, development, and operation of infrastructure. After completing this course, you should understand how to prevent pollution and manage polluted water and sediments in urban environments. The course focuses on engineering methods for monitoring and treating polluted landfill leachate and groundwater, urban stormwater, and urban sediments. This course is valuable for students specialising in environmental, water, traffic, and geological sciences and engineering. The knowledge gained will be valuable to you as a professional engineer and will contribute to the sustainable development of society.
Schedule
Course literature
Appendix 1 contains a reading list with recommended references and key concepts, including the literature needed to solve the group work problem and pass the final exam. Most reading instructions from the lectures are found in the following e-books available for free at the Chalmers.
Library:
1. Erickson et al. (2013) Optimizing Stormwater Treatment Practices
https://link-springer-com.proxy.lib.chalmers.se/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-4624-8
2. Van der Perk (2012) Soil and Water Contamination, second edition
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/chalmers/detail.action?docID=1443853
3. Butler and Davies (2010) Urban Drainage
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/chalmers/detail.action?docID=557250
All students can access the e-books simultaneously. It is possible to download chapters of the books for your study purposes, but you may not use any software that speeds up the download time, because your connection to Chalmers could be turned off. Folders with field methods, all analytical methods, and reports about the case studies (if any) are available in Canvas. These folders are handy for preparing field and laboratory work.
Course design
The starting point for learning in Sustainable Urban Water Engineering is a problem that encompasses human impact and pollution of urban water and sediment, along with a case study area. Your assigned group will perform a study at one of the following case study areas: stormwater ponds at a bus depot, the leachate treatment facility from the Tagene landfill, the contaminated site at Välen, or the mixed urban catchment with stormwater at Litteraturgatan.
The contaminated waters/treatment facilities are convenient for field visits and sampling, and they provide striking examples of human impacts on urban water quality.
Your group will work on this problem for four weeks, including field sampling and laboratory work, and then the results will be presented in a draft report titled "Summary of results." After completing the sampling and analysis phase, your group will focus on developing preventive measures, treatment methods, and management techniques to address the problems in the case study area for approximately three weeks. The results are presented together with those from the first part in a single report, and an individually written opposition report is prepared on another group’s work.
Learning objectives and syllabus
After completion of the course, the student should be able to:
• Design sampling and monitoring strategies and select relevant measurement techniques to determine and assess water and sediment quality affected by urban pollution.
• Propose and design appropriate innovative and sustainable preventive measures and engineered treatment methods for polluted landfill leachate, road runoff, urban stormwater, and urban sediment.
• Understand the importance of water issues and environmental legislation to achieve sustainable development of urban infrastructure and construction.
• Present results and knowledge obtained from case-study investigations and the scientific literature through oral and written presentations, and critically review the work in a professional and qualified manner
Examination form
Continuous assessment is the primary examination form in this course, involving feedback and reporting on group projects, individual written opposition reports, and a final individual written examination. The written group work report is graded F, 3, 4, or 5; the oral presentation and opposition are graded pass or fail separately, based on the assessment criteria presented in Appendix 5. The report is assessed using criteria covering organisation, content, language use, graphics, plagiarism, and referencing. The oral presentation is assessed using criteria covering visual aids and the oral presentation. The opposition is individually evaluated and based on the written opposition report. A student's final grade (graded F, 3, 4, or 5) is based on the group work corresponding to 4.5 hec, and the individual written exam corresponding to 3.0 hec.
We have a traditional written examination at the end of the course, as well as some parts with compulsory attendance (group work). You must attend at least 30 hours of the mandatory 40 hours of scheduled activities. The written examination consists of questions that test your basic knowledge, as well as questions of a more problem-based and reflective character. All reports (group work, oral presentations, PowerPoint slides, and opposition reports) should be handed in through the Canvas learning platform ( https://chalmers.instructure.com/ ). This is also where the teachers will deliver written feedback on your reports. Notice that all reports handed in should be in Word format (PDF not accepted) so that the teachers can use the “track changes” function to give you written feedback