Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will advise an undergraduate student on determining the population, urbanization, and water-related considerations for providing global sanitation access in this century. Through analysis of social and economic indicators, and the environmental indicator of water stress, reasons for the global gap between water and sanitation coverage can be further examined. Water stress, defined as the ratio of total withdrawals to total runoff, is used as an indicator of non-sustainable water use. Gridded industrial and agricultural water use maps from the year 2000 can be adopted from a previously published work [18]. Long term average annual runoff (Q) can be used to represent renewable water resources [19]. National urban and rural basic drinking water coverage and household access can be obtained from UNEP. Where national coverage is unknown, it can be assumed equal to the average of all other countries in the same World Bank income group. In this analysis, domestic water can be estimated at the 0.5° grid level based on drinking water access and sanitation technologies. The student will be able to compare this information with access in the Tampa Bay, there by making students more aware of global issues.

More information: Dr. Mihelcic's website