Water security and sustainable development
Our research is helping to inform how limited freshwater resources can be managed sustainably and efficiently to meet the competing needs of human uses and the environment.
Activities in in this area are supporting sectoral and inter-sectoral water policy both in the UK and internationally, including support for more equitable and sustainable water management in ODA countries to enable economic growth and improved resilience to climate change.
Our current key areas of research include:
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Agricultural water management and policy
Water is critical to food security and rural economies globally. Researchers in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering and the Global Development Institute are evaluating technical and institutional solutions to support sustainable intensification of irrigated agriculture.
Recent and ongoing projects include work on development of low cost irrigation technologies in South Asia and the role of farmer-led irrigation in supporting poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Consumption practices
To move toward more sustainable and water sensitive futures we need to understand water consumption practices and change people's everyday water consumption habits.
The School of Geography has conducted extensive research with UK government agencies and water companies to understand how and why household water demand arises and how we can enable less water-intensive domestic practices. The University has been working with Artesia to understand the changes in household water consumption associated with COVID-19. To understand water consumption practices around the globe researchers are looking at water practices in China, Africa and India which will feed into developing robust water and sanitation policies.
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Water-food-energy nexus
The demand for all of the elements is increasing and the inextricable linkages between them require an integrated approach to ensure water and food security, sustainable agriculture and energy production worldwide. The University of Manchester is ideally placed to deal with these complex issues as is has the widest breadth of research being undertaken by a single HEI in the UK.
The University of Manchester was the lead institution for the STEPPING UP project. Instead of looking at the problems facing the food, water and energy sectors in isolation the project team took a nexus approach to understand the both the positive and negative impacts of scaling up sector innovations across all the areas. Read more about the STEPPING UP project or read a Policy@Manchester blog where the methodology behind the project is explored. FutureDAMS is a flagship water management project where this methodology is at play.
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Water governance
Socio-environmental challenges are deeply rooted in historical evolution of water governance. Researchers in the Society and Environment research group in the Department of Geography are looking at the impact of modern hydro-social politics across the globe to understand how water is perceived, managed and used. Watch a talk by Erik Swyngdouw where he talks about his work on the hydro-social issues.
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Urban water demand and service provision
Access to a safe and affordable supply of clean water is widely accepted as a universal right, but it is far from a universal reality: 140 million people in urban areas still use an unimproved water source and that number is rising, not falling. The African Cities Research Consortium will tackle complex water-related problems in some of Africa’s fastest growing urban areas, including challenges of urban supply and service provision.
The average person in the UK uses 141 litres of water and this coupled with the challenges of population growth and climate change are increasing the pressure on water resources. To deal with this we need to understand the modes of water governance needed to meet the UKs needs whilst mitigating climate change and managing water scarcity. This work spans the Tyndall Centre and The Sustainable Consumption Institute and you can read a blog post where this work is discussed.
Our researchers
Roshan Adhikari
Research Associate
Research specialisms: Agriculture, climate, natural resources, development, policy.
Jafar Al-Jawad
Research Associate
Research specialisms: Surface and groundwater numerical modelling, optimization algorithm and technique, multi-scenario and decision making, water infrastructure design, sustainable management, water-energy nexus.
Cecilia Alda Vidal
Post Graduate Researcher
Research specialisms: Political-ecology, social power and water, hydro-social configurations, water conflict.
Godfred Amankwaa
Teaching Assistant
Research specialisms: Digital water futures, water policy, urban water security, everyday practices, ICT4WaSH.
Research specialisms: Dam operation, river system modelling, multi-objective optimization, hydro-economics, Nile Basin.
Giovanni Basolu
Full Stack Web Developer
Research specialisms: Software developing for water resource modelling.
Alison Browne
Senior Lecturer in Geography
Research specialisms: Water, climate change adaptation, everyday practice and sustainable consumption.
Andrea Bottacin-Busolin
Senior Lecturer
Research specialisms: Water quality modelling and management, urban drainage, flood risk assessment, sediment processes, catchment management.
Bethany Coleman
Teaching Assistant
Research specialisms: Dams, hydropower, hydroelectricity, water science, water governance.
Ralitza Dimova
Associate Professor (Reader) in Development Economics
Research specialisms: Development economics.
Tim Foster
Senior Lecturer in Water-Food Security
Research specialisms: Water-food-energy systems, water resources management, hydro-economic modelling, remote sensing.
Alejandro Gallego Schmid
Lecturer
Research specialisms: Circular economy, water and wastewater resource recovery, life cycle assessment (LCA), developing countries, water-energy nexus.
Jose M. Gonzalez
Post Graduate Researcher
Research specialisms: Integrated water resources management, multi-objective robust optimisation under uncertainty, renewable energies.
Julien Harou
Chair in Water Engineering
Research specialisms: Water management, infrastructure investment assessment, optimisation, simulation, integrated water resource management, multi-criteria assessment.
Claire Hoolohan
Presidential Fellow
Research specialisms: Social dimensions of water use, reducing demand and water security, sustainable consumption.
David Hulme
Professor of Development Studies
Jaise Kuriakose
Teaching Associate, Research Associate
Research specialisms: Climate change, hydro reservoirs, GHG emissions, energy generation, energy demand.
Cecipa Medupin
Lecturer
Research specialisms: River ecology, biodiversity, macroinvertebrates, water quality, rivers, public engagement and knowledge transfer.
Nate Millington
Presidential Fellow
Research specialisms: Politics of the urban environment and the governance of water and waste.
Eva Navarro Lopez
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Research specialisms: Complex networks, cyber-physical systems, control engineering, mathematical modelling, safety/security-critical infrastructures, water distribution networks.
Mathaios Panteli
Lecturer
Research specialisms: Co-simulation, co-optimization, water-energy, resilience, planning, integrated.
Aditya Ramesh
Presidential Fellow (Academic)
Research specialisms: Dams, irrigation, deltas, water-supply, drainage, water bureaucracies, water history.
Sarah Redicker
Post Graduate Researcher
Research specialisms: Irrigation, rainfall variability, smallholder farmer livelihoods, agricultural productivity, adaptation.
Kate Scott
Presidential Fellow (Academic)
Research specialisms: Embodied water, virtual water, water supply chain, water modelling, water consumption.
Stephen Scott-Bottoms
Professor of Contemporary Theatre
Research specialisms: Community and stakeholder engagement (arts based), flood resilience, river stewardship, community engagement, storytelling, sited performance.
Susanne Shultz
Professor of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation
Research specialisms: Physiology, pollution, abstraction, wildlife, population biology.
Samuel Stratford
Post Graduate Researcher
Research specialisms: Dams, politics, finance, state, power.
Erik Swyngedouw
Professor of Human Geography
Research specialisms: Political-ecology, social power and water, hydro-social configurations, water conflict.
Duncan Thomas
Honorary Research Fellow
Research specialisms: Climate change resilience and sustainability in regulated water utility sectors and global water and sanitation planning and policies.
Mark Usher
Simon Research Fellow
Research specialisms: Governance, infrastructure, policy, politics, daylighting.
Dale Whittington
Professor of International Development
Research specialisms: Water research, technology and innovation policies; water privatisation impacts on R&D; innovation strategies and sustainable development.