Key details
Fayyaz Memon
Associate Head of School of Engineering (RKE)
Fayyaz won the Her Majesty’s prestigious Chevening scholarship for MSc in Environmental Engineering followed by a PhD at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London. At Imperial, he worked for 10 years in various capacities including as the project manager for a £2.7 million EPSRC and the UK Water Industry funded 4 year multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional project on Water Cycle Management for New Developments (WaND).
In 2006, he joined the University of Exeter, as a lecturer, at its world leading Centre for Water Systems where he was promoted as an established full Professor in 2018. At Exeter, he led one of the largest research groups of its own kind. He has supervised nearly 30 PhDs and led a team of 7 post docs on a funding secured by him. His contribution to external research grants exceeds £ 5 million.
Fayyaz has led various international initiatives including:
- the British Council and the Department for International Development jointly funded initiative on Capacity Building for Urban Water Demand Management in Developing Countries.
- A 4-year multi-institutional international NERC funded project on the Fate and Management of Emerging Contaminants (FAME) to support Indian Prime Minister’s Flagship Initiative - Clean Ganga Mission
- WATERSAVE Network - an international network on water conservation and recycling having members from over 50 UK and international public and private sector organisations. From the network platform, he co-edited a book on Water Demand Management which has also been translated in Chinese by the International Water Association.
In 2024, he took an early retirement due to family move to London. Fayyaz has recently joined Greenwich as an Associate Professor and presently serves as the Associate of the School of Engineering (RKE).
Responsibilities within the university
Associate Head of School of Engineering (Research and Knowledge Exchange)
Awards
- Environment Agency Water Efficiency Award – Finalist
- Britannia Chevening Award
Recognition
- Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers
- Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- Chartered Engineer (CEng)
- Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv)
Fayyaz has chaired several international conferences (including: AQUA360, SWM-2010 and WATEF-2015). He is regularly invited as a guest/keynote speaker by several prestigious professional bodies including the:
- Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
- Royal Institution of Public Health Engineers
- Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineers
- British Hydrological Society
- British Council
He is frequently invited at universities in Switzerland, India, Australia, Georgia, Pakistan and the USA for an expert input. For COMSTECH (a ministerial standing committee on scientific cooperation, representing over 50 countries), Fayyaz led its initiative on capacity building for urban water demand management for water professionals from over 50 member states.
Fayyaz has completed several external assignments. These include as the external examiner for MSc programmes at the University College London (UCL), University of Surrey and Cranfield University. Additionally, he has been an external PhD examiner to several UK and overseas institutions. These include Imperial College London, University of New South Wales and Griffith University (Australia), Oxford Institute of Sustainable Development, University of Cranfield, University of Surrey, Nottingham Trent University, Birmingham University, the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), University College Cork (Ireland) and the UCL.
Research / Scholarly interests
- Digital water
- Net-zero and green solutions for urban water management
- Sustainable water management for the built environment
- Water efficiency in the built environment
- Water consumption in the built environment including long and short term demand forecasting
- Decentralised alternative water systems for the built environment (rainwater harvesting and greywater reuse)
- Water-energy interactions for the built environment including strategies for resource recovery and waste minimisation
- Centralised and decentralised water and wastewater treatment
- Emerging contaminants treatment through novel adsorbents including graphene-based innovations
- Urban water systems analysis
- Small bore wastewater collection systems
- Analyses of system of systems (water-energy-food nexus)
- Water and sanitation for developing countries
- Stormwater management (quality and quantity control)
- Sustainable drainage systems around built environment
- Flood risk mitigation
- Life cycle analysis
If you are interested in pursuing a collaboration or a PhD in in topics related to sustainable urban water management, please feel free to contact Fayyaz (f.a.memon@gre.ac.uk).
Key funded projects
His net contribution to successful grant applications is well over £5 million and includes the following current/recent projects:
- Fate and Management of Emerging Contaminants - (£457k from NERC/EPSRC - PI)
- Microplastics in sludge and bio-solids (£70k from UKWIR and £91k from EPSRC) - September 2018 - August 2022
- Emerging Contaminants Management for India (£95k from NPIF and £8k from Industry) - completed
- CSI - Catchment Scale Intelligence (£75k from EPSRC +£50k from Southwest Water - PI) - ongoing
- SWDS - Smart Water Distribution Systems for Developing Countries (£30k from eWaterpay - PI) - Completed
- Context specific upscaling of an innovative (Submerged Aerated filter based) wastewater treatment system and its rollout strategy for developing countries (£75k from EPSRC + £ 50k from ELIQUO HYDROK) - completed
- Leakage segregation from in building water consumption using smart meters collected temporal data (£60k from EPSRC + £32 k from Southwest Water - PI) - ongoing
- SARASWATI (€ 350k, FP7 EU project, PI from Exeter) - completed
- W4I (€ 250k, FP7 EU project, PI from Exeter) - completed
- Strategic positioning of vortex flow controls to prevent flooding (£48k from Hydro International + £60k from EPSRC, PI from Exeter) - current
- Urban Futures (£160 k from EPSRC, Co - I) - completed
- Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives (£100k from EPSRC, Co-I) - completed
- Developing partnerships in Higher Education – Water Reuse in developing countries (£80k from British Council, PI from Exeter) - completed
- WaND – Water Cycle Management for New Developments (£2.7 million from EPSRC and Industry, PM) – completed
Additionally, he developed a guidance for dry sanitation for inclusion in the Building Regulations (Part G) under a project sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster, UK. He has supervised over 90 postgraduate level research projects.
Recent publications
Fayyaz has over 200 publications to his credit, including over 100 papers in peer reviewed journals (with many in high impact factor journals including Water Research, Chemosphere and Global Environmental Change) and over 90 in refereed international conferences, 9 book chapters and several co-edited books including:
- Water Demand Management (also translated in Chinese)
- Alternative Water Supply Systems
- Water Management Challenges in Global Change
- Sustainable Water Management in Developing Countries – Opportunities and Challenges
- Advances in Water Supply Management
More publications be seen here: OrcID