PhD in Environmental Engineering and Infrastructure Engineering

Program Overview

The PhD in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering at Politecnico di Milano emphasizes critical aspects of water, the environment, and infrastructure. It offers three thematic profiles: Water Engineering and Science, Transport Infrastructure and Geosciences, and Environmental Engineering, Hydraulics, and Geomatics. The program targets professionals seeking research and leadership roles in universities, research centers, government agencies, and private companies in these fields.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The PhD in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering is a research-oriented program offered by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. It focuses on critical theoretical and technological elements related to water, the environment, water and transport infrastructures, geology and geomatics. The program is characterized by a strong cross-sectoral and multi-sectoral structure and is organized according to three key thematic profiles: Water Engineering and Science, Transport Infrastructure and Geosciences, and Environmental Engineering, Hydraulics and Geomatics.

Outline:

The program is structured around three thematic areas:

• Area 01 - Water Engineering and Science:
• Hydrology and water resources: analysis of hydrological processes, measurement and modeling of water and energy balance, development of water balance models.
• Hydrogeological risk and mitigation strategies: hydrological extremes, flood frequency, drought and rainfall, early warning systems for landslides, avalanches, and flood risk.
• Engineering of hydraulic networks: design of urban sewers and aqueducts, water quality and quantity in drainage networks, flood and pollution control structures.
• Coastal engineering: analysis of wave motion hydrodynamics, marine currents, coastal dynamics, wave-structure interactions.
• Area 02 - Transport Infrastructure and Geosciences:
• Transport networks: modeling of complex transport networks, including functional interactions with regional, national, and international territory.
• Sustainable development: dynamics of development and its relations with the infrastructure system, interaction between tunnels and underground hydraulic systems.
• Technological innovation: methods, criteria, and indicators for performance characterization of infrastructure construction and maintenance techniques.
• Risk management: analysis and development of measures for road infrastructure construction and management, reducing risk for workers and users; geological risk from transport infrastructure construction.
• Applied Geology: hydrogeological risk related to underground excavation in rocks, landslide danger, identification and management of water resources, pollution problems.
• Area 03 - Environmental Engineering, Hydraulics and Geomatics:
• Environmental Engineering:
• Water supply and treatment technologies, waste water disposal/reuse, biological and physico-chemical technologies for waste water treatment, sludge management and disposal, anaerobic digestion processes.
• Management and planning of environmental resources, including pollutant load allocation and assessment of environmental effects.
• Water quality modeling, knowledge-based decision support systems.
• Minimisation and management of solid waste and sludge.
• Atmospheric environment phenomenology and treatment of gaseous emissions: statistical modeling of air quality data, fine particulate matter, emissions from waste incineration, control of organic birds by biofiltration.
• Contaminated land and its remediation, protection and treatment of groundwater.
• Hydraulic Engineering:
• Fluid mechanics.
• Fluid-structure fluid interactions.
• Hydraulic measures.
• River hydraulics.
• Sediment mechanics.
• Hydraulic risk assessment and management.
• Flow and transport processes in permeable media.
• Hydraulic systems, hydro-energy.
• Geomatics:
• Physical and Satellite Geodesy.
• GNSS and standard surveying techniques for navigation, precise positioning, and deformation analysis.
• Surface surveying with optical and other sensors (e.g.
LIDAR).
• Digital photogrammetry and image analysis.
• Remote sensing (from satellite to UAV).
• GIS, Mobile GIS, and WebGIS methods and applications.

Careers:

Typical career prospects include opportunities at universities, research centers, public bodies, and authorities, as well as private companies/industry. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may also require highly professional profiles to ensure critical innovation and competitiveness. A Ph.D. in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering can provide highly qualified personnel for key positions and roles in research centers, top management in Public Authorities and Authorities involved in environmental policy, and senior consultants for engineering companies (national and international).

Other:

• The program is open to students with a Master’s degree in Engineering, Architecture, Physics, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences.
• Engineers with a Master’s degree in Civil and/or Environmental Engineering are particularly suitable as PhD students/applicants.
• Scholarships can be funded by various bodies/organisations, including external public/private research agencies, private companies, and universities.
Examples include the Italian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, Metropolitana Milanese, Breda, Italcementi, Leica, Eni, CTG, Pibiviesse, and the US Office of Naval Research. Each scholarship is addressed to a specific research area and theme.