Professor Raziyeh Farmani

Raziyeh Farmani is a Professor of Water Engineering and Fellow of International Water Association. She was an Industrial Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering at Centre for Water Systems (CWS), University of Exeter, UK. She is the Chair of IWA's Intermittent Water Supply Specialist Group.

She specialises in urban water systems modelling, water resources management and asset management and has expertise in multi-objective optimisation of water networks.

Her research interests covers evolutionary optimisation, artificial intelligence and data mining and their applications in real-time control of water systems, asset management of water distribution systems including leakage analysis, pressure and energy management, reliability and resilience, asset failure and deterioration modelling.

I am happy to take PhD students working on any projects related to my currently active research. Also I would be happy to supervise PhD students interested in AI and Big Data in urban water systems, sustainable water management, water in developing countries and water-energy-food nexus. Please feel free to contact me by email (r.farmani@exeter.ac.uk).

Ongoing PhD Research Supervision

- Jonathan Segynola, Topic: Data Analytics for Smart Management of pipe networks

- Ridi Hossain, Topic: Monitoring the stormwater overflow performance of decentralised stormwater management interventions

- Taegon Ko, Topic: Development of a real-time pipe burst detection model in multi-regional water distribution systems using AI

- Raghavarshith Bandreddi, Topic: Hydraulic model based leak localisation in water distribution systems using on-field sensor data

- Benjamin Orriss, Topic: Exploring multiple benefits of upstream storage reservoirs

- Ramiz Beig Zali, Topic: Water Asset Health deterioration modelling

- Faten Ayyash Baalousha, Schlumberger Foundation Scholarship, Topic: Transition from Intermittent to Continuous Water Supply through Optimum Rehabilitation of Water Systems

- Babak Zolghadr Asli, QUEX scholarship, Topic: How far can we replace traditional water supplies with desalinated seawater – pushing the boundaries, Case study: Chile

- Matthew Hayslep, Topic: Leak detection and location in water networks using evolutionary computing and machine learning

Recently completeded PhD Projects

- Xi Wan, China Scholarship Council, Topic: Data Analytics for Smart Water Systems Operation and Management: Leakage Detection and Localisation

- Mahnoush Maleki, Topic: Adaptive Management of Water Distribution Network Flows to Control Water Quality, Canada

- Vasileios Koukoravas, WISE-CDT, Topic: Pressure Driven Modelling of Intermittent Water Supply Systems, Case study: Zimbabwe

- Dondu Sarisen, Turkish Government Scholarship, Topic: Improving Equity in Intermittent Water Supply Systems

- Samia Saad, Egyptian Government Scholarship, Topic: Investigation of saltwater intrusion in heterogeneous coastal aquifers: Application to Egypt’s Nile Delta

- Elizabeth Lawson, STREAM-CDT, Topic: Rooting out Resilience (Organisational Resilience in the UK Water Sector)

- Iman Alharsha, Libyan Government Scholarship, Topic: Alternative drainage systems investigation for sustainable urban water management in Sirte, Libya.

- Mahdieh Dibaj, Topic: Integrated management of seawater intrusion through coupled 3D surface-subsurface flow and transport modelling, Case study: Taiwan

- Kondwani Simukonda, Commonwealth Scholarship, Topic: Sustainable Conversion of Intermittent Supply to Continuous Water Supply, Case study: Zambia

Research Projects

- Leakage modelling, MENA Funding, Collaboration with the American University of Sharjah, UAE (2023)

- AI for Leakage management, MENA Funding, Collaboration with Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (2022)

- AIoT: Artificial Intelligence of Things Enabling Autonomous Waste Catchments, Ofwat, (2022-2025)

- Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering, (2017), Prof Maria Cunha

- Improved Water and Energy Efficiency for Chilean Mining Industry through Optimum scheduling for integrated water supply-demand side management (2016)

- Local Nexus Network: Building sustainable local nexuses of food, energy and water: from smart engineering to shared prosperity (EPSRC 2015-2017) - It is a collaboration with main focus on localised food manufacturing and decentralised energy and water supply that interact with the food system.

- Safe & SuRe: Towards a new paradigm for urban water management - (EPSRC 2013-2018) develops and promotes new thinking and new approaches to water management in cities to meet global challenges.

- iWIDGET: Improved Water efficiency through ICT technologies for integrated supply-Demand side manaGEmenT - (FP7, 2012-2015)

- UK/US collaboration - Clean Water for All (EPSRC 2013-2014) - An exchange programme between University of Exeter, University of Arizona, University of Utah and University of Toledo (EPSRC and NSF funded).

- UK/China collaboration (Royal Society, 2013-2015)- Optimizing strategies and technologies for nonpoint source pollution control - An exchange programme between University of Exeter and Fudan University. (The Royal Society and International Exchanges NSFC funded)

- She has recently led research in two EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environment consortia. Regional Visions of Integrated Sustainable Infrastructure Optimised for Neighbourhoods: ReVISIONs explores the inter-relationships between water, energy, transport and waste infrastructure policies and development plans and Sustainable Regeneration: From evidence based urban futures to implementation (Urban Futures) establishes and assesses the viability and resilience of alternative water infrastructure solutions for different futures in terms of design, operation and implementation.

• New approaches to adaptive water management under uncertainty (NeWater). Her research focus was on environmental system dynamics, adaptive management with emphasis on developing methods in participatory integrated assessment (using Evolutionary Bayesian belief networks) for guiding step by step adaptive decision making process under uncertainty. The developed methodologies were applied to water demand management in UK, ground water contamination in Denmark, management of over-abstracted aquifers in Spain and flood plain management in Tisza river basin.

Publications