24 June 2014

Guest lecture on Systems Hydrology for the Indus Basin

Dr. Abubakr Muhammad visited ASA, IIASA and gave a lecture on Systems Hydrology for the Indus Basin. Besides his lecture, Dr. Muhammad also discussed with Arkady Kryazhimskiy, Elena Rovenskaya and Sergey Aseev continuation of  collaboration on conceptual modeling of renewable resource consumption

Lecture abstract:
 
Pakistan is facing rapid large-scale environmental changes brought about by natural forces unleashed by climate change; historical forces driven by social, political and demographic changes; and global transitions triggered by new technologies. The impact of these changes is felt most in the water sector in poor management of irrigation networks, depleting groundwater, deterioration in water quality, poor sanitation and difficulties in preservation of eco-systems. In order to meet the technical challenges of time and scale in a problem as complex as water, the speaker's research group has explored many ICT driven tools and systems analysis methods. Some highlights include the deployment of hydrometry networks in southern Punjab to study water efficiency & equity, simulation models for the 1991 water provincial accord and frameworks to quantify uncertainty for water distribution bodies like IRSA and provincial irrigation departments. Other work is related to innovative ideas in demand-based and supply-driven irrigation delivery, robotic inspection of water channels for siltation and study of optimal consumption of renewable resources by consumer networks. These projects have been carried out with technical cooperation and support by national and international organizations including IWMI, WWF, ICTP, IIASA, DAAD and Govt of Pakistan.


Bio

Dr. Abubakr Muhammad is the founding director of CYPHYNETS Lab at LUMS, Pakistan. He is a Jr. Associate Fellow of the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy and the Secretary NMO in Pakistan for the Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2005 from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA where his PhD thesis won the Sigma Xi Best PhD Dissertation Award. He also received masters degrees in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech. He was a postdoctoral researcher first at the University of Pennsylvania and then at McGill University. In 2008, he established the Laboratory for Cyber Physical Networks and Systems (CYPHYNETS) at LUMS. The Lab does fundamental and applied research in robotics, cyber physical systems and water systems engineering. During his research career, he has spent time as a visiting researcher at UIUC, Stanford, ETH Zurich, KAUST, TU Kaiserslautern, University of Melbourne and ICTP.

  


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Last edited: 11 July 2014

CONTACT DETAILS

Elena Rovenskaya

Program Director and Principal Research Scholar Advancing Systems Analysis Program

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313