Irene Seco-Rizo

Dr Irene Seco-Rizo is a civil engineer, specialized in hydrological, hydraulic and water quality modelling for hydrological and environmental application. Her experience includes mainly application in urban hydrology for urban runoff, water quality and sustainable management, as well as agricultural and mixed land-use areas soil-crops hydrological model application for sustainable agricultural water use and pollution control.

She has two overarching research interests; pollution and water management in both urban and rural environments. Irene's current research interests include eco-hydrologic studies as interactions between the hydrological and ecosystems dynamics under anthropogenic pressure (urban and agricultural), catchment-scale modelling and laboratory and monitoring studies of hydrodynamic processes and water resources management (water availability, soil moisture, runoff processes, flooding scenarios and anthropogenic spatiotemporal impacts), modelling and management anthropogenic pollutants and emerging pollutants loads in freshwaters environment, as well as the application of technological innovative methodologies for mapping and monitoring, and artificial intelligence analysis for water monitoring and water environmental protection.

Dr Irene Seco-Rizo graduated in MEng civil engineering from the National University of Salta in Argentina. After graduation Irene develop nearly 7 years of professional working experience in design, project and management of water supply and sewer water management while working for the regional supply company. After these years of professional experience, Irene moved to Spain where she obtains an MSc of Water Resources at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) in 2010 after which she joined the Institut Flumen-CIMNE group firstly with a Technology transfer Fellowship Program from UPC-CIMNE and the river-basin authority, followed by a pre-doctoral early-stage researcher position grant to work as a research and teaching assistant founded by the Spanish founding body AGAUR-FI until December 2014. During this period she obtained her PhD on sewer sediment transport dynamics at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) at Barcelona, Spain and perform 2 pre-doctoral periods of research stays abroad at the Universities of Bradford (2012) and Sheffield (2013) in the UK where acquired valuable experience in experimental-laboratory based research and numerical modelling on water sediments processes. After completing her PhD, Irene was granted as an Experienced Researcher Marie Curie Fellow participating in the HYTECH (Hydrodynamic Transport in Ecologically Critical Interfaces) ITN project based at the University of Padua in Italy.

As one of her main interests has always been the transferring of applied research in the industry, and with her background experience developed in both industry and academia, Irene has been working since the end of 2015 as an independent consultant, assisting several companies and a wide variety of stakeholders in the better understanding of hydrodynamic variables and processes in the urban and rural-agricultural field for diagnosis and managing. She has also been involved in exchange academic programs with Spain, Italy, Argentina, Colombia, Perú, Ecuador and Bolivia, delivering bespoken courses on Urban hydrology modelling and sustainable drainage in different universities and specialization courses programs for various Professionals Associations.