Mustafa Onur Onen
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering
Research Student
Full contact details
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering
E101
Sir Frederick Mappin Building (Broad Lane Building)
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
- Profile
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Civil Engineer MSc. who is passionate about building decision-aiding tools in water resources planning and management to help minimize the daunting effects of droughts on societies, and contributing to the future developments in this area.
- Qualifications
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MSc. in Water Resources Engineering
MSc. in Hydraulics Experience in water resources planning and dam design as well as developing real-world applications in numerical modeling and decision-aiding tools for water resources management.
- Research interests
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Research Project Title: Integrating climate risk to reservoir water quality into water infrastructure planning
Recent heatwaves have illustrated the risk hotter summers pose to water reservoirs strategic to our water supply, with algal blooms receiving national media coverage. Algal blooms make water treatment difficult or even impossible. They are more likely to appear in warm and shallow waters, generally the double result of hot weather and drought-related pressures on supply. This means that reservoirs’ water may not be accessible when it is most needed: during hot, dry summers.
Climate change is expected to increase the severity and frequency of both summer heatwaves and droughts, leading to either algal blooms or operational strategies to preserve water depth. Either way, large but yet unquantified quantities of water cannot be used for consumption. This knowledge gap has crucial implications for drought-resilient planning.
To address this gap, this project aims to integrate water quality modelling into advanced decision-making frameworks for water resource planning. It will quantify climate risk to reservoir water quality in a context of uncertainty in future water demands and environmental regulation. It will also propose operational strategies to minimise this risk. Results may inform water planning and investment decisions, enhancing long-term drought resilience.
- Research group