Dr Matteo Rubinato

I am from Cavarzere (Venice) and I have completed my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Environmental Engineering at the University of Padova (Italy) and I have obtained my Ph.D. in Civil and Water Engineering in 2015 at the University of Sheffield (UK).

Since then, throughout my academic career, I have conducted research with members at over 25 institutions across Europe, USA, and China with longer periods spent at the University of Colorado Boulder, Sichuan University, Beijing Normal University, and Xi’an University of Technology. My outputs have led to multiple high-quality journal articles, conference proceedings, and book-chapters.

Due to my recent contributions, I am one of the leaders in large-scale physical modeling of urban floods in the UK.

The main focus of my research involves understanding and modelling environmental processes typical of urban, river and coastal areas and also explores engineering in the field of environmental fluid mechanics to develop innovative and useful approaches to help reduce the vulnerability, as well as enhance the resilience, adaptive capacity, and sustainability of environmental systems around the world in the face of increasing challenges, uncertainty, and climate change variability.

Weather influences the transport and dissemination of microbial agents via rainfall and runoff and the survival and/or growth through such factors as temperature. Laws and regulatory programs protect much of the world population from waterborne disease; however, if climate variability increases, current and future deficiencies in areas such as watershed protection, infrastructure, and storm drainage systems will probably increase the risk of contamination events. Runoff from the urban environment is a major contributor of non-point source contamination for many estuaries, yet the ultimate fate of this stormwater within the estuary is frequently unknown in detail. Knowledge about transport processes and the fate of microbial pollutants associated with rainfall is key to predicting risks from a change in weather variability, and this is the reason why, to date, I have investigated the spreading and mixing of pollutants during heavy rainfall events in urban, river and coastal areas. The relationships between climate variability and occurrence of microbial agents in urban and coastal water need quantification in the marine environment to address the potential health effects of climate variability in combination with other stresses such as rise in sea level once the pollutants have reached coastal areas from natural waterways. Thus, my research aims at supporting the water industry in considering whether radical changes to managing drainage systems (sewer rehabilitation strategies) and water quality in estuaries (rivers) reaching coastal areas could better protect public health.

Contact Details

Teaching Activity