El uso de los programas R y EPANET para la enseñanza en la gestión del agua a los ingenieros

Abstract

At Bilbao Engineering School (University of the Basque Country, www.ehu.es), our students in the last year of their studies, before becoming engineers, have the opportunity to select a block of subjects intended to enhance their knowledge on generally speaking, Fluid Mechanics. The focus of this paper is an educational experience applied to two of the subjects belonging to this stream: “Networks of Fluids” and “Management and Maintenance of Hydraulic Systems”. The reason to deal jointly with the two subjects is that both are devoted to different aspects of the water cycle management. In these subjects, state-of-the-art operation and management techniques are taught to the students. Apart from the transmission of good practices and standard applied protocols, the focus is practical and is based on hands-on computer real-life exercises, which involves not only intensive programming using high-level software, but also the spatial representation of results in georeferenced formats and/or maps. The approach is therefore that of Learning by Projects (LBP). To that purpose, two main open source codes are used: EPANET and R. Students learn how to address real-life problems regarding the correct calculation of water distribution networks with EPANET while more general issues about a great deal of water management aspects are solved with R. Both EPANET and R are open source scientific software widely used in the private sector, so by the end of the course, students have a good and practical grasp on water management problems. In their surveys, students place high value on this methodology. This learning-by-problems approach contributes to minimizing the gap between theoretical education and real-life problems for future engineers.