International project presents flood research at Cop 27

Students from South Wales and the Middle East have been working together on a project designed to help alleviate flooding.

The four postgraduates students – two from the University of South Wales (USW) and two from South Valley University-Egypt (SVU) – looked at ways to manage flood risk in Wales as part of a project carried out on behalf of Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) County Borough Council.

The collaboration between USW and SVU started in April 2022 as part of a scheme called ‘Enhancing Universities’ Contribution to Face Climate Change through, Research, Teaching and Community Engagement’. It is part of British Council in Egypt project which forms part of the ‘UK – Egypt HE partnerships for Climate Change’.

This is a part of larger programme called ‘Going Global Partnerships’, which aims to strengthen the collaboration between UK and Egyptian institutions to enable research, Internationalising HE institutions, strengthening educational systems, and enhancing student outcomes. The project is due to last until April 2023.

A major aim of the project was to build a partnership between USW and SVU which would support short and long-term initiatives that help both communities and government to face climate change.

This was to be achieved in four ways; by engaging with the South Wales community to share knowledge and experience to develop a real climate change project; by taking students’ voices to COP27; by developing a training course for students in both universities to raise Climate Change awareness among them, and by improving learning and teaching for climate change.

“To deliver and complete these objectives, two reciprocal visits between the research teams from both institutions have been arranged to discuss the project scopes and activities through seminars and workshops. The first visit was completed by the USW research team in the summer of 2022, with a return visit by the SVU research team next February,” said Mohamed Mohamed, who is a lecturer in aeronautical & mechanical engineering at USW and was Principal Investigator on the project.

“The project carried out in partnership with RCT addressed the first challenge, through which the four students looked at ways to reduce the risk of flooding by using Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDs) – which mimic natural drainage systems.

“After they completed the work with RCT, the students presented their results together at COP27 conference in Sharm El Skeikh, Egypt, in November.”

The USW Project Team included Mohamed Mohamed (Principal Investigator), Ewen Constant (Co- Investigator), CK Tan (Co- Investigator), Matthew Miller, MEng Mechanical Engineering Student, and Konrad Kubik, MEng Mechanical Engineering Student.

The SVU Project Team were Mahmoud Abd El-sadek (Principal Investigator), Youssef Gharbawy (Co-Investigator), Ahmed Shmroukh (Co-Investigator), Mahmoud Mahmoud, MSc Mechanical Engineering Student, Alaa Attia, MSc Climate Change Student.