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Decision support for wastewater infrastructure planning in rural Swiss communities
Master Thesis or Intern to investigate wastewater infrastructure planning for a small Swiss community. The methods developed and tested have high practical relevance as “blueprint”. The student will work at the interface of engineering, natural, and social sciences and can interact with stakeholders
**Background:**
In Switzerland and similar countries, centralized wastewater infrastructures are widely established. Their disadvantages such as low flexibility, low resource recovery, or high costs have great impact particularly under dynamic conditions and in rural, sparsely populated areas. A growing number of rural communities are facing the question: How do we proceed? Do we rehabilitate or can we replace current network systems with alternative decentralized systems, which are gaining increased attention?
This Master Thesis or Intern project is embedded in the project “Decision-making for the transition from central to novel wastewater infrastructure systems” (http://www.tinyurl.com/dezswwjuraso ). It is a collaboration between Eawag’s Environmental Social Sciences and Urban Water Management departments and the environmental agency of the canton of Solothurn.
**Tasks:**
The focus of the Master Thesis or Intern project can be adapted to suit the students’ scientific background and interests, for example:
- Scientific questions related to framing the decision problem and eliciting stakeholder preferences in direct contact with stakeholders (conduct interviews, workshops) or using online surveys;
- Predict the consequences (outcomes) of each option with appropriate methods: modelling and expert interviews;
- Behavioral/ psychological perspective to experimentally test the change of stakeholder preferences due to different intervention types, and over time;
- Model the entire MCDA including predictions, stakeholder preference, and uncertainty with the open source programming language R.
**Specific information / Requirements:**
The described topic fits you perfectly if you have broad interests ranging from water management to decision-making, including participatory processes. You are not afraid to cross disciplinary borders. You should be confident in dealing with numbers (e.g. engineering calculations, statistical analyses) as well as with people (social science research methods, e.g. interviews). Familiarity with programming in R is welcome but not required. To be fully involved in the case study, fluent German language skills are preferred.
You will be member of the team in the Decision Analysis cluster at the Environmental Social Science (ESS) department of Eawag, which is a supportive and committed research group. The offered Master Thesis/ Intern project is suitable for students from a variety of disciplines, but the appropriateness for your course of study should be checked beforehand with the respective administration/ professor.
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
**Background:** In Switzerland and similar countries, centralized wastewater infrastructures are widely established. Their disadvantages such as low flexibility, low resource recovery, or high costs have great impact particularly under dynamic conditions and in rural, sparsely populated areas. A growing number of rural communities are facing the question: How do we proceed? Do we rehabilitate or can we replace current network systems with alternative decentralized systems, which are gaining increased attention?
This Master Thesis or Intern project is embedded in the project “Decision-making for the transition from central to novel wastewater infrastructure systems” (http://www.tinyurl.com/dezswwjuraso ). It is a collaboration between Eawag’s Environmental Social Sciences and Urban Water Management departments and the environmental agency of the canton of Solothurn.
**Tasks:** The focus of the Master Thesis or Intern project can be adapted to suit the students’ scientific background and interests, for example: - Scientific questions related to framing the decision problem and eliciting stakeholder preferences in direct contact with stakeholders (conduct interviews, workshops) or using online surveys; - Predict the consequences (outcomes) of each option with appropriate methods: modelling and expert interviews; - Behavioral/ psychological perspective to experimentally test the change of stakeholder preferences due to different intervention types, and over time; - Model the entire MCDA including predictions, stakeholder preference, and uncertainty with the open source programming language R.
**Specific information / Requirements:** The described topic fits you perfectly if you have broad interests ranging from water management to decision-making, including participatory processes. You are not afraid to cross disciplinary borders. You should be confident in dealing with numbers (e.g. engineering calculations, statistical analyses) as well as with people (social science research methods, e.g. interviews). Familiarity with programming in R is welcome but not required. To be fully involved in the case study, fluent German language skills are preferred.
You will be member of the team in the Decision Analysis cluster at the Environmental Social Science (ESS) department of Eawag, which is a supportive and committed research group. The offered Master Thesis/ Intern project is suitable for students from a variety of disciplines, but the appropriateness for your course of study should be checked beforehand with the respective administration/ professor.
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
The student shall scientifically accompany the decision-making process in the case study community and/ or develop necessary (elicitation or modelling) tools. Aim is to test and further develop a set of procedures and tools developed in a previous case study. Methodologically, a combination of problem structuring methods and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) will be used. Different types of stakeholder interactions and data collection methods are required, namely: group workshops, expert interviews, online questionnaires, and computer modelling. The student will closely collaborate with the project team.
The student shall scientifically accompany the decision-making process in the case study community and/ or develop necessary (elicitation or modelling) tools. Aim is to test and further develop a set of procedures and tools developed in a previous case study. Methodologically, a combination of problem structuring methods and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) will be used. Different types of stakeholder interactions and data collection methods are required, namely: group workshops, expert interviews, online questionnaires, and computer modelling. The student will closely collaborate with the project team.
**Advisors and Supervisors:**
Philipp Beutler (Scientific project collaborator) & Judit Lienert (Cluster leader)
**Contact information:**
Dipl.-Ing. Philipp Beutler
E-Mail: philipp.beutler@eawag.ch
Phone: +41 58 765 52 85
Dr. Judit Lienert
E-Mail: judit.lienert@eawag.ch
Phone: +41 58 765 5574
**Advisors and Supervisors:** Philipp Beutler (Scientific project collaborator) & Judit Lienert (Cluster leader)