Our next PhDTalks Seminar will be held on tuesday 20^th february in Fassò Room (Building 4A), from 5:15 pm to 6:30 pm CET. 

PhDTalks is a series of seminars and discussions between PhD students. The events are aimed at providing a place to network and get in contact with many of the projects developed in our department. 

Speaker Jessica Ianes will talk about “Managing (micro-)pollutants contamination in integrated urban wastewater systems: risk assessment and mitigation strategies”. 

At the end of each event a small refreshment funded by the department will be available. 

You can watch the event online by clicking here.

Abstract
Over the past few decades, rapid growth of population, economy, and urbanization, have posed significant challenges for the environment, such as the deterioration of surface water and groundwater quality. Concurrently, diverse user demands have determined the competition for clean water resources, exacerbated by severe droughts caused by climate change. In highly urbanized areas, water can be used for different purposes, discharging very different types of (micro-)pollutants into the sewer system or directly to surface water. In fact, these systems are often combined and when rain events hit the city, they can reach their capacity, discharging untreated wastewater and stormwater directly into water bodies, causing pollutants overload. Moreover, wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are currently designed to remove only conventional pollutants, spreading micropollutants in the environment also in dry-weather. In this way, different type of contaminants can reach surface water and move across different water sources and compartments. They can accumulate in groundwater and surface water, where they can also be transferred due to crop irrigation. The complexity in contamination sources, pathways, and receptors make urban water management intricate. Correct and well-planned water management is crucial to avoid conflicts among different stakeholders and to limit the risk for the environment and human health. To address these issues, the present project aims at developing a comprehensive framework for assessing and managing (micro-)pollutants risks in urban water, modeling their fate and transport across various water sources and compartments, while also exploring suitable treatment technologies for wet-weather discharges and WWTP effluent.

Speaker’s bio
Jessica is a PhD student in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering (37th cycle) at Politecnico di Milano. She has a Master of Science in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering obtained in 2021 at Politecnico di Milano. Jessica works in the safeWATER research group and her research activity focuses on modelling fate and transport of micropollutants in urban water, assessing the environmental risk and evaluating proper mitigation strategies. In her free time she loves enjoying nature, playing the piano, and travelling.