EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Water and Waste Infrastructure Systems Engineered for Resilience (Water-WISER)

世界瞬息万变。快速的城市化、大规模的人口流动、气候变化带来的越来越大的压力、自然灾害和人为灾害给地方和国家政府带来了巨大的压力，要求它们提供住房、水、卫生设施、固体废物(垃圾)管理和其他关键服务。在英国，与基础设施老化相关的挑战也在持续存在(例如，许多下水道已有100多年的历史)，同时，需要在住房、新城镇建设方面进行新的投资，迫切需要减少对昂贵化石燃料的依赖，减少污染，增加宝贵资源的回收。随着经济条件的改善，人们自然要求更好的服务；24小时直通住宅的自来水和方便、安全的私人厕所取代了公共站立管道和公共厕所，这是非洲、亚洲、太平洋和拉丁美洲(“全球南方”)许多家庭的愿望。所有这一切既带来了挑战，也带来了机遇。未来几十年，全球南部将对新的基础设施投资有巨大需求；全世界有超过44亿人没有有效收集和处理家庭产生的所有废物的卫生系统，而24亿人迫切需要新的供水服务。在满足这一全球需求和国内对新创新的需求方面，英国工程行业将发挥重要作用。但这其中存在挑战；根据定义，新一代服务和基础设施必须在性质上与传统提供的服务和基础设施本质上不同。在气候变化等不确定性日益增加的时代，传统的管道供水和排污网络设计方法将导致严重的过度设计，以至于仅投资成本就会令人望而却步。同样，仅仅在废水处理系统上不断增加额外的处理工艺以满足日益严峻的条件和更高的排放标准，也不再是可以接受的，继续向我们的河流和溪流输送有价值的营养物质和碳也是不可接受的；需要新的方法，恢复人类和固体废物流的营养和能量价值，实际上完全摒弃废物的想法，转向资源管理和所谓的循环经济的想法。为了满足这一需求，需要的是新一代研究工程师和科学家，他们不仅接受过‘已知’基础知识的培训，而且还接受了‘可以重新想象的’这一更具挑战性的领域的培训。EPSRC为应对这些巨大挑战而设计的水和废物基础设施服务博士培训中心(Water-Wiser)将培训五批具有应对这些巨大挑战所需新技能的研究人员。该中心的学生将有机会在致力于弹性基础设施和发展的三所全球领先大学中的一所学习。他们将参加为期一年的硕士课程，然后与工程咨询公司、大学或世界银行、联合国儿童基金会或水援助组织等发展机构合作，开展量身定做的研究；研究如何在快速增长的贫困城市提供创新、有效和有弹性的基础设施和服务。更懂水的毕业生将在水和卫生、固体废物管理、水资源和排水等基础工程和科学方面接受扎实的培训，并进行更广泛的培训和发展，以培养与非工程师和非科学家合作所需的技能，与社会学家和政治学家、城市规划者、数字设计师、商业发展专家和管理人员、健康专家、国际开发和金融领域的专业人员合作。

The world is changing fast. Rapid urbanisation, large scale population movements, increasing pressure from climate change, natural and man-made disasters create enormous pressures on local and national governments to provide housing, water, sanitation, solid waste (rubbish) management and other critical services. In the UK there is also an ongoing challenge associated with aging infrastructure (many sewers for example are more than 100 years old) and at the same time, calls for new investment in housing, the construction of new towns, and an urgent need to reduce reliance on expensive fossil fuels, reduce pollution and increase the recovery of valuable resources. As economic conditions improve, people naturally demand better services; twenty-four hour water piped direct to the house and convenient safe private toilets have replaced public stand pipes and public toilets as the aspiration of many families in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America (the "global south"). All of this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. In coming decades there will be a huge demand for new infrastructure investments in the global south; more than 4.4 billion people worldwide do not have a sanitation system that effectively collects and treats all the waste produced by families, while 2.4 billion people urgently need new water supply services. The UK engineering industry is poised to play a significant role in meeting both this global demand and the need for new innovations at home. But therein lies the challenge; the new generation of services and infrastructure must, by very definition, be essentially different in nature from what has been traditionally provided. In an era of increasing uncertainty from, for example, the changing climate, the traditional approach to the design of piped water supplies and sewerage networks would result in such a major over design that the investment costs alone would be prohibitive. Similarly, it is no longer acceptable to just keep adding additional treatment processes on to waste water treatment systems to meet increasingly challenging conditions and higher discharge standards, nor is it acceptable to continue to pump valuable nutrients and carbon into our rivers and streams; new approaches are needed, which recover the nutrient and energy value of human and solid waste streams, in fact turning away from the idea of waste altogether and moving towards the idea of resource management and the so-called circular economy. What is needed to meet this demand is a new generation of research engineers and scientists trained not only in the fundamentals of 'what is known' but in the more challenging area of 'what can be re-imagined'. The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Water and Waste Infrastructure Services Engineered for Resilience (Water-WISER) will train five cohorts of researchers with the new skills needed to meet these enormous challenges. Students in the Centre will have the opportunity to study at one of three globally-leading Universities working on resilient infrastructure and development. They will take a one year Masters course and then move on to carry out tailored research, in partnership with engineering consultancy firms, universities or development agencies such as the World Bank, UNICEF or WaterAid; studying how to deliver innovative, effective and resilient infrastructure and services in rapidly growing poor cities. Water-WISER graduates will combine a solid training in the fundamental engineering and science of water and sanitation, solid waste management, water resources and drainage, with much broader training and development which will build the skills needed to collaborate with non-engineers and non-scientists, to work with sociologists and political scientists, city planners, digital designers, business development specialists and administrators, health specialists, professionals working in international development and finance.