Starts: Annually in August
Duration: 20 months
Locations: AIT, Bangkok, Thailand and UNESCO-IHE, Delft, the Netherlands

Context

The world is increasingly urbanised with 50% of the world’s population living in urban areas. By 2030 in Asia 54% will live in cities compared to 39% in 2005. This enormous growth of urban areas poses several challenges, such as delivery of essential water and sanitation services and the management of the urban water cycle. This is also recognised by the Millennium Development Goals and Targets established at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. These challenges are further complicated due to climate change, and it is foreseen that coping with them requires a substantial increase of highly trained and qualified human resources.

Prospective Students

The target group for the Urban Water Engineering and Management programme (UWEM) are professionals from urban water and wastewater authorities, urban development ministries/ authorities, water and environment ministries, private companies, academia, NGOs and city and municipal authorities dealing with or interested in water and sanitation services and managing the urban water cycle.

Candidates with a bachelor’s degree preferably in Civil, Environmental or Water Resources Engineering or related fields are eligible to apply. In principle, candidates should have a minimum of three years of practical or research experience since graduation. All applications are, however, considered on their individual merits. Since instruction and examinations are given in English, it is essential that participants have a good working knowledge of the English language. If there is any doubt about a candidate’s proficiency in English, he or she will be required to take one of the internationally recognised language tests before confirmation of admittance.

Learning Objectives

Graduates of the UWEM programme will:

• Understand the urban water cycle and its water system components, their characteristics and functioning within greater urban infrastructure systems;
• Understand urban water management problems including ability to: identify water systems’ demand; deal with climatic and hydrologic uncertainties and/or extremes; institutional limitations; and work within a data-constrained environment;
• Be able to make appropriate and critical use of methods, techniques and tools necessary to monitor, analyse and design urban water systems including water supply infrastructure, drinking water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection, treatment, transport and disposal systems and drainage systems;
• Understand water infrastructure/asset planning, financing and management, and utility management;
• Be familiar with the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM) and its application to a variety of water management problems at the urban catchment scale.

Degree

Students who successfully complete the UWEM programme will be awarded two Master degrees: one from UNESCO-IHE and one from AIT. The degree students receive from UNESCO-IHE is the degree in Municipal Water and Infrastructure, with a specialization in Urban Water Engineering and Management. AIT will award a degree in Urban Water Engineering and Management.

Admission procedure

Please click here for the admission procedure for the Joint Double Degree programmes we have with AIT.

NOTE: UNESCO-IHE and eight partners were recently awarded a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a large capacity building and research project to stimulate local innovation on sanitation for the urban poor. As part of this project 55 MSc scholarships in Sanitary Engineering are partially funded by the foundation. Click here for more information.

Information about AIT

Please click here for information about AIT, our partner in this programme.

Programme structure and contents

The UWEM programme offers students the possibility to study at two renowned institutes for international postgraduate education: AIT and UNESCO-IHE. The coursework part of the programme starts at AIT in Bangkok in August, where students follow a number of courses until the second half of December. In early January, they move to Delft where they join students in UNESCO-IHE’s Municipal Water and Infrastructure programme for five modules and the international field trip. Depending on their thesis topic, students then either move back to Bangkok or remain in Delft for their additional coursework and individual thesis research work.

Subjects at AIT (August – December)

• Watershed Hydrology
• Drinking Water Treatment
• Wastewater Treatment
• Integrated Water Resource Management

Subjects at UNESCO-IHE (January – May)

• Integrated Urban Water Management
• Urban Drainage and Sewerage
• Water Sector and Utility Management
• Integrated Asset Management Systems
• Water Transport and Distribution
• International Fieldtrip & Fieldwork

At AIT or UNESCO-IHE (June onwards)

• Elective Subjects/ Groupwork
• Thesis Proposal & Work

More information

View the UWEM programme on AIT's website.