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Assela Pathirana PhD, MSc

Associate Professor of Integrated Urban Water Cycle Management

Biography

Assela graduated from the faculty of engineering, university of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 1995, with first class honors in Civil Engineering, and obtained Masters and Doctoral degrees in Civil Engineering, specializing in hydrology and water resources engineering, from Tokyo University, in 1998 and 2001 respectively.

Assela Pathirana’s Masters Thesis in 1998 was in Hydroinformatics, on the interlinking of distributed watershed models, relational databases and GIS systems for online multi-user information systems. In his PhD thesis he investigated on the modeling rainfall process based on scaling theories for downscaling applications in watershed and urban drainage scale hydrology.

After obtaining his PhD, Assela Pathirana spent two years as a post doctoral fellow at Chuo University, Japan, funded by Japan Society of Promotion of Science (JSPS), where he investigated the use of physically based models for downscaling atmospheric forcing for hydrological applications. Later he worked as a senior research fellow of the Environment and Sustainable Development programme of United Nations University and later as a research scientist of the International Center for Water Hazard Risk Management (UNESCO-ICHARM), before joining IHE in 2006.

During the period 2001-2006, he worked as a guest lecturer in Chuo University, Tokyo and during 2001-2003 at Tokyo University.

In addition to his training as a specialist in hydrology and water resources engineering, Assela Pathirana has strong background in numerical modeling, parallel computing, database systems, GIS and information and communication technology tools.

His current main research interests are focused on the interactions between urban environment, atmosphere and hydrological cycle, which include: Climate change, scaling issues with special emphasis on translating climatic forcing to drivers of changes in urban-scale hydrology, single and multi-objective optimization in urban water applications. Assela Pathirana has a strong publication record that includes books, book chapters and numerous international journal papers. He contributes to the community as editorial board member and reviewer of scientific journals.

In education he contributes to teaching in areas of Urban Drainage and Sewerage, Asset Management of Water Utilities, Water transport and distribution, Water and Climate and Computer Programming. Currently he supervises several PhD theses, and mentors MSc research in the areas of Urban Drainage, Asset Management and Water Transport and Distribution.

Publications

Books & Chapters

Patrick Willems, Jonas Olsson, Karsten Arnbjerg-Nielsen, Simon Beecham, Assela Pathirana, Ida Bulow Gregersen, Henrik Madsen, Van-Thanh-Van Nguyen, Impacts of Climate Change on Rainfall Extremes and Urban Drainage Systems
Publication Date: 15 Sep 2012 • ISBN: 9781780401256

Zevenbergen, C and Pathirana, A.  (2012) Managing urban flooding in the face of continuous change. In: Resilience and Urban Risk Management. Edited by Richard Laganier, CRC Press 2012, ISBN: 978-0-415-62147-2. DOI: 10.1201/b12994-1

Sempewo, J.; Parthirana, A.; Vairavamoorthy, K. Zoning Tool for Water Distribution Leakage Control. In Water Demand Management in the City of the Future; Kayaga, S.; Smout, I., Eds.; Water, Engineering and Development Centre, Laughborough University: UK, 2011. File:CITY OF THE FUTURE.pdf

S. Herath, A. Pathirana, and S.B. Weerakoon, editors. Proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Water Management in the Changing Environment of the Monsoon Region, volume I and II, Nov 2004. United Nations University, National water resources secretariat, Sri Lanka. ISBN 955-1142-00-4.

Peer-reviewed Journal Papers

Assela Pathirana, Hailu B. Denekew, William Veerbeek, Chris Zevenbergen, Allan T. Banda, Impact of urban growth-driven landuse change on microclimate and extreme precipitation – A sensitivity study, Atmospheric Research, Available online 23 October 2013, ISSN 0169-8095, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2013.10.005.

Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K., Willems, P., Olsson, J., Beecham, S., Pathirana, A., Bulow Gregersen, I., Madsen, H. and Nguyen, V.-T.V.. 2013. Impacts of climate change on rainfall extremes and urban drainage systems: A review. Water Science and Technology 68 (1): 16-28.

Gersonius, B., Ashley, R., Pathirana, A. and Zevenbergen, C.. 2013. Climate change uncertainty: Building flexibility into water and flood risk infrastructure. Climatic Change 116 (2): 411-423.

Zevenbergen, C. and Pathirana, A.. 2013. Managing urban flooding in the face of continuous change. Paper presented at the meeting of the , .

Adeogun, A.G., Pathirana, A. and Daramola, M.O.. 2012. 1D-2D hydrodynamic model coupling for inundation analysis of sewer overflow. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences 7 (5): 356-362.

Gersonius, B., Ashley, R., Pathirana, A. and Zevenbergen, C.. 2012. Adaptation of flood risk infrastructure to climate resilience. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Civil Engineering 165 (6): 40-45.

Gersonius, B., Nasruddin, F., Ashley, R., Jeuken, A., Pathirana, A. and Zevenbergen, C.. 2012. Developing the evidence base for mainstreaming adaptation of stormwater systems to climate change. Water Research 46 (20): 6824-6835.

Pathirana, A., Gersonius, B. and Radhakrishnan, M.. 2012. Web 2.0 collaboration tool to support student research in hydrology an opinion. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 16 (8): 2499-2509.

Pathirana, A., Koster, J.H., De Jong, E. and Uhlenbrook, S.. 2012. On teaching styles of water educators and the impact of didactic training. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 16 (10): 3677-3688.

Pathirana, A.. 2012. EPANET2 desktop application for pressure driven demand modeling. Paper presented at the meeting of the , .

Radhakrishnan, M., Pathirana, A., Ghebremichael, K. and Amy, G.. 2012. Modelling formation of disinfection by-products in water distribution: Optimisation using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology - AQUA 61 (3): 176-188.

Delelegn, S.W., Pathirana, A., Gersonius, B., Adeogun, A.G. and Vairavamoorthy, K.. 2011. Multi-objective optimisation of cost-benefit of urban flood management using a 1D2D coupled model. Water Science and Technology 63 (5): 1053-1059.

Pathirana, A., Tsegaye, S., Gersonius, B. and Vairavamoorthy, K.. 2011. A simple 2-D inundation model for incorporating flood damage in urban drainage planning. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 15 (8): 2747-2761.

Adeogun, A.G., Pathirana, A., Gersonius, B., Wright, N.G. and Sanders, B.F.. 2010. 1D-2D model coupling for urban drainage analysis and optimization. Paper presented at the meeting of the , .

Gersonius, B., Ashley, R., Pathirana, A. and Zevenbergen, C.. 2010. Managing the flooding system's resiliency to climate change. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Engineering Sustainability 163 (1): 15-22.

Maharjan, M., Pathirana, A., Gersonius, B. and Vairavamoorthy, K.. 2009. Staged cost optimization of urban storm drainage systems based on hydraulic performance in a changing environment. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 13 (4): 481-489.

Sempewo, J., Pathirana, A. and Vairavamoorthy, K.. 2009. Spatial analysis tool for development of leakage control zones from the analogy of distributed computing. Paper presented at the meeting of the , .

Sempewo, J., Pathirana, A. and Vairavamoorthy, K.. 2009. Spatial analysis tool for development of leakage control zones from the analogy of distributed computing. Paper presented at the meeting of the , .

Vairavamoorthy, K., Gorantiwar, S.D. and Pathirana, A.. 2008. Managing urban water supplies in developing countries - Climate change and water scarcity scenarios. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 33 (5): 330-339.

Pathirana, A., Herath, S., Yamada, T. and Swain, D.. 2007. Impacts of absorbing aerosols on South Asian rainfall: A modeling study. Climatic Change 85 (1-2): 103-118.

D.K. Swain, S. Herath, A. Pathirana, and R.N. Dash. Nitrogen Fertilizer Optimization and Cultivar Selection for Rice Grown near Mountainous Slopes in Orissa, India – A Field Experiment and Simulation Model Study. Journal of Mountain Science, 2(4):329–335, 2005.

A. Pathirana, S. Herath, and T. Yamada. Simulating orographic rainfall with a limited-area, non-hydrostatic atmospheric model under idealized forcing. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 5:215–226, 2005. URL http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/acp/5/215/acp-5-215.htm. European Geosciences Union.

A. Pathirana, S. Herath, and T. Yamada. Estimating Rainfall Distributions at High Temporal Resolutions Using a Multifractal Model. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 7(5): 668–679, 2004. URL http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/hess/7/5/668.htm. European Geosciences Union.

A. Pathirana and T. Yamada. Idealized simulation of orographic rainfall with a mesoscale atmospheric model. Annual Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 48:295–300, 2004. Japan Society of Civil Engineers.

A. Pathirana, S. Herath, and T. Yamada. On the modeling of temporal correlations in spatial-cascade rainfall downscaling. Weather Radar Information and Distributed Hydrological Modelling (Proceedings of symposium HS03 held during IUGG2003 at Sapporo, July 2003), IAHS Publ. no. 282:74–82, 2003a. URLhttp://assela.pathirana.net/images/c/c4/Pathirana_et_al.IAHS_Red_2003.pdf. International Association of Hydrological Sciences.

A. Pathirana, S. Herath, and T. Yamada. Using fractals in space-time scaling of rainfall. Asian Journal of Geophysics, 3-3:49–56, 2003b. Asian Institute of Technology.

A. Pathirana, M. Yamaguchi, and T. Yamada. Idealized simulation of airflow over a mountain ridge using a mesoscale atmospheric model. Annual Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 47:31–36, 2003c. URL http://assela.pathirana.net/images/6/6d/Suiri2002.pdf. Japan Society of Civil Engineers.

A. Pathirana and S. Herath. Multifractal Modeling and Simulation of Rain Fields Exhibiting Spatial Heterogeneity. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 6-4: 695–708, 2003. URL http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/hess/6/4/695.htm. European Geosciences Union.

A. Pathirana, S. Herath, and K. Musiake. Scaling rainfall series with a multifractal model. Annual Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 45:295–300, 2001. Japan Society of Civil Engineers.

A. Pathirana, S. Herath, and K. Musiake. On the scaling properties of a stochastic rainfall model. Annual Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 44:1–6, 2000. URLhttp://assela.pathirana.net/images/7/71/Suiri1999.pdf. Japan Society of Civil Engineers.