Photo of Prof Fayyaz Ali  Memon (FICE, FCIWEM, FHEA, CEng, CEnv)

Prof Fayyaz Ali Memon (FICE, FCIWEM, FHEA, CEng, CEnv)

Professor of Sustainable Water Systems

Email:

Location: Harrison 176

Telephone: 01392 724048

Extension: (Streatham) 4048

Visit personal website »

Prof Memon was awarded the Her Majesty’s prestigious scholarship for MSc in Environmental Engineering followed by a PhD at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London.  Before joining Exeter, at Imperial College he worked for about 10 years in various capacities including as the project manager for a £2.7 million EPSRC cum Industry funded 4 year multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional  project on Water Cycle Management for New Developments (WaND). He coordinated a team of over 30 senior researchers from 8 UK institutions and 20 industrial collaborators and was responsible for the delivery of high quality project outputs including over 20 water planning tools.

Fayyaz has led various international initiatives including the British Council and the Department for International Development jointly funded initiative on Capacity Building for Urban Water Demand Management in Developing Countries. He has led a 4 year multi-institutional international NERC project on the Fate and Management of Emerging Contaminants (FAME) Prof Memon was  also the co-ordinator of an international network on water conservation and recycling (WATERSAVE) having members from over 50 UK and international public and private sector organisations. From the network platform, he co-edited a book on Water Demand Management which has also been translated in Chinese by the International Water Association.

He has research interests in water reuse technologies, water consumption trends, rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling, water saving micro-components, life cycle analysis, sustainable drainage systems, carbon foot printing, implications of water demand management on water distribution and wastewater collection systems, decision support systems,  food-water-energy nexus, Net zero water management and water management in developing countries.

His net contribution to successful grant applications is well over £5 million and includes the following current/recent projects:

  • FAME - Fate and Managemnet of Emerging Contaminants -  (£457k from NERC/EPSRC - PI) 
  • Microplastics in sludge and bio-solids (£70k from UKWIR and £91k from EPSRC) - September 2018 - August 2022
  • Emerging Contaminants Management for India (£95k from NPIF and £8k from Industry) - ongoing
  • CSI - Catchment Scale Intelligence (£75k from EPSRC +£50k from Southwest Water - PI) - ongoing
  • SWDS - Smart Water Distribution Systems for Developing Countries (£30k from eWaterpay - PI)
  • Context specific upscaling of an innovative (Submerged Aerated filter based) wastewater treatment system and its rollout strategy for developing countries (£75k from EPSRC + £ 50k from ELIQUO HYDROK) - ongoing
  • Leakage segregation from in building water consumption using smart meters collected temporal data (£60k from EPSRC + £32 k from Southwest Water - PI) - ongoing
  • SARAWAT (€ 350k, FP7 EU project, PI from Exeter) - completed
  • W4I (€ 250k, FP7 EU project, PI from Exeter) -  completed
  • Strategic positioning of vortex flow controls to prevent flooding (£48k from Hydro International + £60k from EPSRC, PI from Exeter) - current
  • Urban Futures (£160 k from EPSRC, Co - I) - completed
  • Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives (£100k from EPSRC, Co-I) - completed
  • Developing partnerships in Higher Education – Water Reuse in developing countries (£80k from British Council, PI from Exeter) - completed
  • WaND – Water Cycle Management for New Developments (£2.7 million from EPSRC and Industry, PM) – completed

 

Other industry supported projects include:

  • Development of wastewater treatment technology selection module for incorporation in the customer assisted system integration model for Shell Ltd
  • UK country report on water industry management issues. EU sponsored Aqualibrium Project
  • Performance monitoring of water efficient fixtures at Heathrow Airport
  • Whole life cost assessment of greywater treatment technologies
  • Development of life cycle assessment tool for grey water treatment technologies
  • Study of domestic water consumption patterns and quantification of wastewater discharges
  • Modeling the influence of water demand management measures on wastewater generation profiles
  • Fat, oil and grease (FOG) management for sewer systems and user behavior and education

 

Additionally, he developed a guidance for dry sanitation for inclusion in the Building Regulations (Part G) under a project sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster. He has supervised over 90 research projects at postgraduate level. 

Prof Memon has been an external examiner for  MSc programmes at the University College London (UCL),  University of Surrey and Cranfield University. Additionally, he has been an external PhD examiner to several UK and overseas institutions. These include Imperial College London, University of New South Wales and Griffith University (Australia), Oxford Institute of Sustainable Development, University of Cranfield, University of Surrey, Nottingham Trent University, the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), University College Cork (Ireland) and UCL. Fayyaz is an associate editor for the British Journal of Environment and Climate Change.  He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers, a Chartered Civil Engineer, a Chartered Environmentalist and Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.

He has chaired international conferences (e.g. SWM-2010 and WATEF-2015, AQUA360). He is reularly invited as a guest/keynote speaker by several prestigious professional bodies including the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), the Royal Institution of Public Health Engineers, Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineers, the British Hydrological Society, the British Council and several universities in Switzerland, India, Australia, Georgia and Pakistan. Prof Memon on invitation from COMSTECH (a ministerial standing committee on scientific cooperation, representing over 50 countries), led its initiative on capacity building for urban water demand management for water professionals from the member states.

Fayyaz has over 200 publications to his credit, including over 80 papers in peer reviewed journals (with many in high impact factor journals including Water Research, Chemosphere and Global Environmental Change) and over 90 in refereed international conferences, 9 book chapters and 5  co-edited books on:

 

Fayyaz is leading a research group on water management in developing countries and his group currently comprises of two associate research fellows and 11 PhD students. The research fellows who have worked in his group under his supervision include:

 

Presently he is the first supervisor for 12 PhD students:

  1. Iman Alharsha (Investigating the impact of decentralised water management systems and optimal drainage network designs)
  2. Paul Wills (High resolution data for leakage detection and micro-component based analysis)
  3. David Pryce (Sustainability evaluation of emerging decentralised wsatewater treatments for developing countries) - Project Poster
  4. Deborah Shackleton (Predicting cholera and mitigation deployment in developing countries)
  5. Matthew Griffey (Integrated modelling of resources at catchment scale) - Project Poster
  6. Nsikak Mitchel Offiong (Application of machine learning for fault detection in smart water distribution systems for developing countries)
  7. Döndü Sarışen (Simulating intermittant water supply systems under uncertain demand)
  8. Daisy Harley-Nyang (Microplastics characterisation for wastewater, sludge and agrocultural lands)
  9. Xiaojie Zhou (Long and short term demand forecasting to understand and reduce domestic water consumption)
  10. Danyang Gao (Water-Energy-Food Nexus modelling for China)
  11. Rebecca Hall  (Domestic hot water consumption)

 

Additionally, he is the second PhD supervisor for the following scholars:

  1. Korinum Waimbo (Food-Water-Energy nexus and human development index)
  2. William Addison-Atkinson (Flood risk management in developing countries)
  3. Bhavya Joshi (Synthesis of novel materials for water and wastewater treatment)

 

Some of the recently completed PhDs under his supervision include:

  1. Dr William Ingram (Smart and sustainable water supply for Gambia and Tanzania)
  2. Slamatta Ibrahim (Groundwater management for Freetown)
  3. Dr Wa'el Abdul Bari Hussein (Multi-scale modelling of water-energy-food Nexus)
  4. Dr Christopher Newton (Startegic positioning of flow attenuation devices in sewer networks) - Project Poster
  5. Dr Sarah Ward (Rainwater harvesting in the UK: A strategic framework to enable transition from novel to mainstream)
  6. Dr Abdi Fidar (Environmental and economic implications of water efficiency measures in buildings)
  7. Dr Sturat Atkinson (A futures approach to water distribution and sewer networks (re)design )
  8. Dr Ashfaque Pathan (RBC application for low strength grey water treatment and establishment of optimal operational envelop)
  9. Dr Manzoor Rajput (Effectiveness of low cost green technologies for grey water resue in developing countries)
  10. Dr Gerald Riss (Events Recognition System (ERS) for Water Treatment Processes) - Project Poster
  11. Dr Irini Nikoloudi (Event Management and Post Event Response Planning for Intelligent Water Networks)

 

If you are interested in pursuing a PhD in a topic closer to Prof Memon's research interests, you can contact him for further discussion on the topic and the PhD application process.