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Academic departments

Water supply, sanitation and environmental engineering

The Water Supply, Sanitation and Environmental Engineering (WSSEE) department works to expand access to safe drinking water and sanitation in an environmentally sustainable manner. The department combines cutting-edge, applied and fundamental research and education to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - in particular SDG6 on universal water and sanitation access. Departmental research is transdisciplinary, holistic and applied, and mainly focuses on urban and peri-urban areas, often in contexts of water scarcity or risks for flooding. It is valued for its applied and innovative nature.

Technical innovations continuously expand the problem-solving capacity of the water sector, but innovations alone are no guarantee for sustainable provision of safe water and sanitation services. For this reason, the department addresses not only technological and engineering aspects of water supply and sanitation, but also societal, economic and institutional aspects.

The department’s international staff teaches new generations of modern water supply, sanitation and environmental engineering professionals who are able to address all related aspects. The staff also conducts cutting-edge, applied and highly relevant research, and provides integrated, innovative, tailor-made advice and practical solutions to people in cities worldwide.

Highlighted project

Global Sanitation Graduate School

In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, IHE Delft and 42 academic institutions from Asia, Africa and Latin America work together to establish the Global Sanitation Graduate School (GSGS) - a platform that facilitates the development and dissemination of knowledge on sanitation through postgraduate (MSc) programmes, courses and tailor-made training. The GSGS project, which runs from 2018 to 2025, strives to educate and train 10,000 sanitation professionals by the year 2030.

Students from the GSGS

The WSSEE department’s research includes experimental work in laboratory-, pilot- and field-scales as well as the use of mathematical modelling and decision-support systems in both conventional and emergency situations. Our research is carried out at IHE Delft and in Africa, Asia, the Middle-East and Latin America.

Department staff focus on four areas:

  • Sanitary Engineering
  • Water Supply Engineering
  • Pollution Prevention and Resource Recovery
  • Nature-based Solutions

Research themes

The department strives to facilitate access to safe drinking water and sanitation through work in interconnected research themes aligned with future developments in the fields of water supply, sanitation and the circular economy. The department's research addresses questions of societal relevance and underpins IHE Delft’s education and capacity development projects.

Water supply

  • Drinking water quality and treatment

    Research questions include:
    Which low-cost, sustainable and indigenous technologies, methods and approaches can be used to remove (toxic) contaminants such as arsenic, fluoride, nitrate, iron manganese and pathogens from ground- and surface-water in centralized and decentralized treatment systems in low-income countries?

    Which water-quality methods and models can be used to assess, monitor and improve desalination system design and operation to produce safe drinking water from marginal water resources such as seawater, brackish water and wastewater without harming the environment?

  • Drinking water transport and distribution

    Which methods and tools can assess, monitor and help reduce and control non-revenue water and its components in water distribution systems and contribute to sustainable urban water supply and demand-management strategies of water utilities?

    How can cutting-edge numerical models be improved to cope with the modern water distribution problems? How can the reliability and efficiency of water distribution systems be improved in an environmentally responsible manner: how can the use of energy and chemicals, water loss and costs be minimised? 

    Which methods, tools and operational strategies are required to improve the biological stability of drinking water and to eliminate the occurrence of pathogens, sediments and corrosion products during transport and distribution as well as in household storage systems and how does improved water quality impact health and development?

Citywide inclusive sanitation

  • Sanitation, health & quality of life

    How can sanitation be developed and implemented embracing both on-site and sewered solutions, in centralized and decentralized systems, with consideration of resource recovery and re-use? How does (improved) access to appropriate sanitation impact health and quality of life of specific unserved and underserved groups, such as women, ethnic minorities, the urban poor and people with disabilities? Find out more about citywide inclusive sanitation on our topic page.

  • Sewage and sludge treatment

    How can processes and systems for sewage, sewage sludge, and faecal sludge treatment and product formation be developed and improved through fundamental and applied research at all levels, ranging from molecule to full-scale installations?

  • Urban flood risk mitigation

    What adaptive, sociotechnical risk-management measures and strategies (including nature-based solutions) can be developed, demonstrated, upscaled and used to increase the resilience of urban communities against extreme hydro-meteorological events to minimise social, economic and environmental impacts? Find out more on our nature-based solutions topic page.

Pollution Prevention and Resource Recovery

  • Ecotechnologies for wastewater treatment and resource recovery

    How can ecotechnologies such as constructed wetlands and algae-photobioreactors be optimised to achieve effluent standards required for reuse while reducing the areal footprint and producing resources from side-products?

  • Wastewater reuse in agriculture and health risk management

    How can effluent reuse schemes be designed in an integrated way to enhance sustainability and minimise health risks from pathogens and emerging pollutants? How can advanced treatment steps be developed based on low-tech technologies, for example biochar adsorption filters? How can advanced molecular biology techniques be integrated in field-based water quality monitoring systems?

  • Circular economy: from waste to resource

    How can water resources be safeguarded through the integration of pollution prevention and resource recovery in societal processes in urban areas, industries and agriculture? How can processes at the level of bioreactor, production and in industrial zones be optimised?

People in this department