Environmental Fluid Mechanics Lab (EFML)

My research will look to bring my flooding and stormwater management background together with litter pollution in the Umgeni River. I will focus on estimating the impact that land-use has within a catchment on the litter captured at one of the litter booms within the Umgeni River catchment. I will make use of the existing available litter characterisation data from the litter boom and the upstream land-uses to determine the relationship between land-use and litter. The upstream land-use will be derived from Machine Learning using the eThekwini Municipality high-resolution aerial imagery rather than the eThekwini Land-Use spatial information so that “real-time” land-use can be understood. A calibrated hydrological-hydraulic model will be developed to predict the transport of the litter generated from the catchment through the river system and to the litter boom.