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Engineering

Photo of Prof Guangtao Fu

Prof Guangtao Fu

Professor of Water Intelligence

 G.Fu@exeter.ac.uk

 (Streatham) 3692

 01392 723692


Overview

I am a professor of water intelligence at the Centre for Water Systems, University of Exeter and a Turing fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. I am currently a fellow of the International Water Association (IWA) and was a Royal Society Industry Fellow working with Northumbrian Water Limited (2017-2022). I have a Bachelor's degree and a Masters in Hydraulic Engineering both from Shandong University, and a PhD in Water Resources Engineering from Dalian University of Technology, China. I worked as a researcher at the University of Bristol and Imperial College London before joining the University of Exeter. I am currently serving as an associate editor for the ASCE Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management and H2Open Journal, and an editorial board member for Hydrology Research and Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 

Research Interests

My research focuses on developing and applying new computer models, data analytics and artificial intelligence tools to tackle water challenges in reservoir operation, water supply resilience, network leakage, flood risk and resilience, sewer blockage, urban stormwater  and wastewater management.

To tackle uncertainty, I worked on developing a new theoretical uncertainty analysis framework of imprecise probabilities, which enables an accurate representation of uncertainty of various types and thus quantify their impacts on water systems. The new framework has been applied to climate modelling, flood analysis, and water system design. To tackle system complexity, I explored three different levels from model development, algorithm design to analytics tools for interactive and transparent decision making. Highlights in this area include the work on many-objective visual analytics for water infrastructure systems (water supply, urban drainage and urban wastewater systems), yielding an award of the Quentin Martin Best Practice Paper by ASCE Journal of Water Resources Planning & Management.

I have worked extensively on modelling and control of integrated urban wastewater systems including urban drainage/sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants. The work has been particularly fruitful in modelling of greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment, highlighted by a number of Water Research papers and the prestigious UK ‘Scopus Young Researcher Prize’ awarded to doctoral student Chris Sweetapple.

Current research areas include:

  • Deep learning for water system management
  • Deep reinforcement learning for water system operation and planning
  • Digital twins for resilient and sustainable water management 
  • Smart water and wastewater infrastructure systems
  • Integrated modelling and real time control of urban wastewater systems
  • Water distribution system design and management
  • Urban green infrastructure and sponge cities
  • Flood risk and resilience analysis
  • Drought assessment and management 
  • Reservoir operation
  • Water resources analysis
  • Climate change impacts and adaptation

PhD Students

Highly motivated students are welcome to apply for PhD study in the above research areas. In particular, I am offering to supervise self-funded PhD students in the following areas: 

  • Urban flood modelling and resilience analysis using hydrodynamic models and machine learning models
  • Real-time control of water distribution systems or urban wastewater systems using deep reinforcement learning
  • Leakage or blockage detection, optimal sensor placement  
  • Real-time reservoir/hydropower system operation

中国学生请点击Exeter大学官方微信介绍. Chinese students can now apply for the 50 full-time PhD Scholarships jointly funded by the China Scholarship Council and University of Exeter. Applicants are most welcome to contact me to discuss the research topic before the application deadline, which is normally in early Janurary. 

Selected Awards and Honours

  • 2018 EWRI 'Best Research-Oriented Paper' award from the ASCE Journal of Water Resources Planning & Management.
  • Doctoral student Dr Chris Sweetapple won the prestigious Scopus Young Researcher UK Award in the category of Environmental Science 2015.
  • 2014 EWRI 'Quentin Martin Best Practice-Oriented Paper' award from the ASCE Journal of Water Resources Planning & Management.
  • Leading member of the team which won the Battle of Water Networks II competition, organised by the 14th Water Distribution Systems Analysis conference, 24-27 September 2012, Adelaide, Australia
  • The Best Paper Prize of the 14th Water Distribution Systems Analysis conference, 24-27 September 2012, Adelaide, Australia

Selected Research Grants

  • Royal Society Industry Fellowship: Real-time Decision Analytics for Smart Water Infrastructure (April 2017 - Mar 2021).
  • EPSRC, BRIM: Building Resilience Into Risk Management (1st March 2016 – 28th Feb 2019), PI. The project, which involves two partner universities Cranfield and Loughborough, will develop a shared, multi-disciplinary vision of how to build resilience into networked risk management for highly complex engineered systems. It is part of £21 million ‘Engineering Grand Challenges’, announced by Science Minister Jo Johnson on 16th Oct 2015.
  • British Council, Global Innovation Initiative – Flood impact assessment in mega cities under urban sprawl and climate change, 31 Mar 2015 – 30 Mar 2017, Co-I.
  • British Council and UKIERI, Water Security and Infrastructure Resilience under Climate Change (15th Mar 2014-31th May 2016), PI
  • EPSRC, Safe & SuRe: a new paradigm for water management (1st March 2013 – 28th Feb 2018), Co-I
  • EPSRC, Clean Water for All: Safe & SuRe, Co-I
  • British Council and CSC, Development and Application of Hydroinformatics Tools for Urban Stormwater Management (1st Dec 2012- 31st Dec 2014) – Co-I
  • Royal Academy of Engineering, Integrated water quality management in a mixed rural and urban catchment (1st May – 31st Dec 2013), Co-I
  • Royal Society & NSFC, Optimizing Strategies and Technologies for Nonpoint Source Pollution Control (1st April 2013 – 31st March 2015), PI
  • EU FP7 - Marie Curie Initial Training Networks: Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management - SANITAS (1st Nov 2011- 31st Oct 2015) – Co-I
  • Royal Academy of Engineering, Integrated water energy management of complex water systems under uncertainty, 1st July 2012- 31st August 2013, - PI.

Selected Publications

         

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 |

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2023

2022

2021

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2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

  • Astaraie-Imani M, Kapelan Z, Fu G, Butler D. (2011) MOGA-ANN based optimisation of integrated urban wastewater system control strategies, the 11th Conference on Computing and Control for the Water Industry, Exeter, 5th - 7th Sep 2011.
  • Burovskiy P, Kapelan Z, Fu G. (2011) Stochastic risk-based optimisation of water distribution systems with unknown water demands, the 11th Conference on Computing and Control for the Water Industry, Exeter, 5th - 7th Sep 2011.
  • Fu G, Butler D, Kapelan Z. (2011) Sewer flood analysis of urban drainage systems using copulas, the 11th Conference on Computing and Control for the Water Industry, Exeter, 5th - 7th Sep 2011.
  • Fu G, Butler D. (2011) Frequency analysis of receiving water quality in an integrated urban wastewater system, IWA, Cities of the future, Xi'an, China, 15th - 18th Sep 2011.
  • Fu G, Kapelan Z. (2011) Fuzzy probabilistic design of water distribution networks, Water Resources Research, volume 47, article no. W05538, DOI:10.1029/2010WR009739.
  • Fu G, Butler D, Khu ST, Sun S. (2011) Imprecise probabilistic evaluation of sewer flooding in urban drainage systems using random set theory, Water Resources Research, volume 47, DOI:10.1029/2009WR008944.

2010

2009

2008

  • Trevor T. (2008) Foreword, Ursula Biemann : mission reports : artistic practice in the field : video works 1998-2001, Bildmuseet, Umea University.
  • Fu G, Butler D, Khu ST. (2008) Multiobjective optimization of urban wastewater systems using ParEGO: a comparison with NSGA II, 11th International Conference on Urban Drainage, Edinburgh, Uk.
  • Fu G, Khu ST, di Pierro F, Doglioni A, Primativo F. (2008) Development of an integrated framework for assessing the impact of urban planning on water quality, iEMSs 2008: International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Barcelona, Spain.
  • Fu G, Butler D, Khu ST. (2008) Comparison of control strategies for multi-objective control of urban wastewater systems, iEMSs 2008: International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Barcelona, Spain.
  • Butler D, Fu G, Khu ST. (2008) The relationship between sewer flood volume and receiving water quality in an integrated urban wastewater system, BHS 2008, Exeter,uk.
  • Fu G, Butler D, Khu S-T. (2008) Multiple objective optimal control of integrated urban wastewater systems, Environmental Modelling and Software, volume 23, pages 225-234, DOI:10.1016/j.envsoft.2007.06.003.
  • Fu G. (2008) A fuzzy optimization method for multicriteria decision making: An application to reservoir flood control operation, Expert Systems with Applications, volume 34, pages 145-149, DOI:10.1016/j.eswa.2006.08.021.
  • Fu G, Butler D, Khu S-T. (2008) Multiple objective optimal control of integrated urban wastewater systems, Environmental Modelling and Software, volume 23, no. 2, pages 225-234, DOI:10.1016/j.envsoft.2007.06.003.
  • Fu G, Butler D, Khu S-T. (2008) Multiple objective optimal control of integrated urban wastewater systems, Environmental Modelling and Software, volume 23, pages 225-234.
  • Fu GT, Khu ST, di P, Doglioni A, Primativo F. (2008) Development of an integrated framework for assessing the impact of urban planning on water quality, "Barcelona, Spain".
  • Fu G, Butler D, Khu S-T. (2008) Comparison of control strategies for multi-objective control of urban wastewater systems, "Barcelona, Spain".

2007

2005

  • Hall J, Reeder T, Fu G, Nicholls RJ, Wicks J, Lawry J, Dawson RJ, Parker D. (2005) Tidal flood risk in London under stabilisation scenarios, International Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gasses, International Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gasses, Exeter, Uk.
  • Lawry J, Hall J, Fu G. (2005) A granular semantics for fuzzy measures and its application to climate change scenarios, ISIPTA '05, 4th International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications, Carnegie Mellon University.
  • Chen S, Fu G. (2005) Combining fuzzy iteration model with dynamic programming to solve multi-objective multistage decision making problems, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, volume 152, no. 3, pages 499-512.

2004

  • Chen SY, Han XJ, Wang JM, Fu GT. (2004) Cyclical iteration model and unified theory of fuzzy cluster, recognition and optimum decision, Dalian Ligong Daxue Xuebao/Journal of Dalian University of Technology, volume 44, no. 6, pages 883-886.

2003

2002

  • Chen SY, Fu GT, Zhou HC, Wang GL. (2002) Fuzzy analysis model and methodology for aquifer vulnerability evaluation, Shuili Xuebao/Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, no. 7.
  • Chen SY, Wang JM, Fu GT. (2002) Integrated fuzzy decision-making model with incomplete information, Kongzhi yu Juece/Control and Decision, volume 17, no. 6, pages 847-851.
  • Chen SY, Fu GT, Wang JM. (2002) Fuzzy recognition dynamic programming model for complex system decisions, Shuikexue Jinzhan/Advances in Water Science, volume 13, no. 6, pages 689-695.

2001

  • Chen S, Fu G, Wang J, Liu G. (2001) A fuzzy optimum model of semi-structural decisions for lectotype optimization of offshore platforms, China Ocean Engineering, volume 15, no. 4, pages 453-466.

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