monica.riva@polimi.it
roberto.canziani@polimi.it
Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering
Program
The PhD program in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering is part of the research and training offerings of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The program introduces doctoral students to the research field, focusing on critical theoretical and technological aspects related to water, the environment, hydraulic and transportation infrastructures, geology, and geomatics. The program features a strong interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral structure and is organized around the following three key thematic profiles.
Areas
The topics of interest are as follows:
- Hydrology and Water Resources: analysis of the main physical processes of the hydrological cycle that drive flooding, drought, and pollution transport; measurement and modeling of the variables involved in water and energy balances; development of distributed continuous water balance models.
- Hydrogeological risk and mitigation strategies, including hydrological extremes, flood frequency, drought and precipitation, rapid warning systems for shallow landslides, snow avalanches, and flood risk.
- Hydraulic network engineering, including the design of urban sewer systems and water supply networks, water quality and quantity in drainage networks, and the effects of local and distributed structures for flood and pollution control.
- Coastal engineering, including the analysis of wave motion hydrodynamics, ocean currents, shoreline dynamics, and wave-structure interactions.
The topics of interest are as follows:
- Transport Networks: modeling of complex transport networks, including functional interactions with regional, national, and international territories.
- Sustainable Development: the complex phenomena characterizing development dynamics and their relationships with the infrastructure system; interaction between tunnels and underground hydraulic systems.
- Technological Innovation: methods, criteria, and indicators for the performance characterization of construction and maintenance techniques for infrastructures.
- Risk Management: analysis and development of improved measures for the construction and management of road infrastructures, aimed at reducing risk for both workers and users; geological risk arising from the construction of transport infrastructures.
- Applied Geology: hydrogeological risk associated with underground excavation in rock; landslide hazards; identification and management of water resources; pollution-related issues.
Research in Environmental Engineering covers the following topics:
- Water supply and treatment technologies; wastewater disposal and reuse; biological and physicochemical technologies for wastewater treatment; sludge management and disposal; anaerobic digestion processes;
- Environmental resource management and planning, including the allocation of pollutant loads at the source and the assessment of their effects on environmental components;
- Water quality modeling and knowledge-based decision support systems;
- Minimization and management of solid waste and sludge;
- Atmospheric environment phenomena and gas emissions treatment: statistical modeling of air quality data, fine particulate matter in the atmosphere, micro-pollutant emissions from waste incineration, and control of volatile organic compounds through biofiltration;
- Contaminated soils and their remediation; protection and treatment of groundwater.
Research topics associated with hydraulic engineering include:
- Fluid Mechanics;
- Fluid-structure interactions of fluids;
- Hydraulic measurements;
- River hydraulics;
- Sediment mechanics;
- Hydraulic risk assessment and management;
- Flow and transport processes in porous media;
- Hydraulic networks, hydroenergy.
Finally, the main research conducted in the field of Geomatics focuses on the following topics:
- Physical and Satellite Geodesy;
- GNSS and traditional survey methodologies for navigation, precise positioning, and deformation analysis;
- Surface surveying with optical and non-optical sensors (e.g., LIDAR);
- Digital Photogrammetry and Image Analysis;
- Remote Sensing (from satellite to drone);
- Methods and applications related to GIS, mobile GIS, and WebGIS;
- Surveying and documentation of historical and architectural heritage;
Course Catalog
Here you can find the Course Catalog for the PhD program in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering.
You can change the academic year to view the curriculum offerings from previous years that might be offered again soon.
Career Opportunities
Typical career prospects include opportunities at universities, research centers, public institutions and authorities, as well as private companies and industry. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may also seek highly skilled professionals to ensure critical innovation and competitiveness. A PhD in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering can provide highly qualified personnel for key positions in research centers, top management roles in public institutions and authorities involved in environmental policy, and senior consultancy positions in engineering firms (both national and international).
Eligible Candidates and Scholarships
Students holding a Master’s degree in Engineering, Architecture, Physics, Mathematics, or Natural Sciences are eligible to apply to the program. Engineers with a Master’s degree in Civil and/or Environmental Engineering are particularly suitable as PhD candidates. Scholarships may also be funded by various entities and organizations, including public and private research agencies, companies, and universities. Examples include the Italian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, Metropolitana Milanese, Breda, Italcementi, Leica, Eni, CTG, Pibiviesse, and the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Each scholarship is linked to a specific research area and topic.