Chair Groups
Each academic department is composed of chair groups, each of which is formed around a particular discipline or specialization. Each chair group is led by a professor who holds a chair in a defined academic field and is responsible for the quality of the work of his or her staff.
Integrated Water Systems & Governance
Water Management
Contributes to developing and managing sustainable water systems through a better scientific understanding of their functioning.
Water Governance
Identifies the three interdependent domains: Water Policy, Water Law and Water Politics through which research, education and capacity development activities are organized.
Hydroinformatics
Concerns the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and modelling, and their application for resolving water-related problems in civil engineering, and information systems for integrated water management.
Knowledge & Capacity Development
Analysing the dynamics of the learning, competence building and innovation systems for the water sector.
Water Science & Engineering
Land & Water Development
Deals with the technology of adapting and managing land and water resources for specific forms of land use in rural, urban and industrial areas. Its activities focus on the development of rural areas and the topics of irrigation, drainage and flood protection.
Aquatic Ecosystems
Creates a better understanding of the relationship between the ecological structure, function and integrity of wetlands in the support of livelihoods.
Hydrology & Water Resources
Contributes to a better understanding of hydrological processes, to improve techniques for data monitoring and handling, to improve modelling of processes within the hydrological cycle, and to interpret and present results for implementation of integrated water resources management.
Coastal Systems, Engineering & Port Development
Deals with the analysis, design and management of natural and man-made systems in the coastal environment.
River Basin Development
Investigates processes in the natural and built environment which are determinant for the design and planning of sustainable water infrastructures prepared for global change.
Flood Resilience
Advancing scientific knowledge and practical application into integrated approaches to cultivate resilience in urban communities and built-up areas.
Environmental Engineering & Water Technology
Water Supply Engineering
Generation and transfer of knowledge related to both appropriate low-cost technologies and advanced drinking water and industrial water treatment and distribution.
Pollution Prevention & Resource Recovery
Focuses on the development of rational approaches to sustainable waste management via cleaner production, appropriate waste treatment and resource recovery in both the water supply and sanitation, and the industrial sectors.
Sanitary Engineering
Contributes to knowledge development and capacity building in the urban sanitation field; areas of interest include urban drainage, waste water collection, treatment and reclamation/reuse, and residuals management.