The need for climate change adaptation in the area of water is increasing, especially in the cities.
The increasing urbanisation of Denmark and the rest of the world raises the chal-lenge of securing a corresponding sustainable water infrastructure. DTU Environ-ment has hired three new associated professors to further develop and strengthen the work in modelling urban water systems. The aim is to increase the resilience of urban areas by increased understanding and description of the city dynamics and key drivers of change, including digitization, in order to enable better decisions regarding the water management.
”It is encouraging that we have this exceptional opportunity to hire three that com-petent researchers. It gives our work with modelling of urban water a powerful boost to meet the future challenges in this area” says Professor Hans-Jørgen Al-brechtsen, head of the Urban Water Section at DTU Environment.
The three newly hired associated professors are Hjalte Jomo Danielsen Sørup, Morten Borup and Roland Löwe. The recruitment will increase DTU Environment’s digital profile, which also will be seen in the education of the department’s stu-dents.
The three associate professors have different background and research areas:
Roland Löwe
Roland Löwe has a background as hydrologist and urban water consultant and did a PhD in applied statistics. His current research focuses on simulating possible developments of urban areas and corresponding water infrastructure under deep uncertainties. This work is placed in a context of changing climates, continued urbanisation in Denmark and world-wide, and increasing requirements to environ-mental protection. The aim is to optimize investments into water infrastructure, minimizing the risk of failed investments and ensuring that infrastructure both pro-vides safe water management and contributes to liveable urban environments.
Roland Löwe's work links to on-going work in the Urban Water Section on concep-tual model development, sustainability assessments and modelling water quality, and opens up for cross-disciplinary assessments of urban infrastructure. With competencies in statistics and machine learning, as well as the automation of GIS and hydraulic models he will sharpen DTU Environment’s digital profile and con-tribute to ensuring that students meet the increasing demands for "big data skills" in the water sector.
Hjalte Jomo Danielsen Sørup
Hjalte Jomo Danielsen Sørup’s current research focus is on urban drainage dim ensioning practice in a changing climate; i.e. how to integrate large scale blue-green infrastructure into the existing systems while securing optimal perfor-mance both on an everyday basis as well as in extreme cases and both today and in an uncertain future climate. This requires in-depth work with utilizing the newest generations of climate model data, making them relevant at urban scale through stochastic downscaling of rainfall, as well as development of methodologies for selecting truly sustainable solutions that support society without compromising the planet.
Hjalte Jomo Danielsen Sørup’s profile on climate change impacts and sustainabil-ity will sharpen the Urban Water Section’s s work on conceptual model develop-ment for dimensioning purposes and lead to sustainable solutions that does not only solve hydraulic problems of a changing climate, but also help mitigate cli-mate change. Hjalte Jomo Danielsen Sørup will contribute to DTU Environment’s sustainable profile with concrete knowledge on how to integrate sustainability measures into decision making, also beyond urban hydrology, and will through his on-going work further strengthen cross DTU collaborations in this area.
Morten Borup
Morten has a background as electro- and environmental Engineer and has been working with hydraulic modelling for various purposes for more than a decade. His research is focussing on implementing process understanding into models and combine these with observations using e.g. data assimilation techniques to extract the most information in real-time for both diagnostics, error detection, warnings and real time control purposes. This research will potentially enable a much better management of the water systems with the potential of decreasing power con-sumption, leakages and discharge of pollutants to the surroundings.
Mortens diverse and technical background makes him an ideal candidate to sup-port the department’s agenda of contribution substantially to the digitalization of the water sector. His future contributions are expected to benefit DTU as well as the Danish water sector by providing the tools and methods required for the digital future of tomorrow.