Dr Kefeng Zhang | UNSW Research

My Expertise

Green technologies for urban stormwater management (e.g. bioretention systems, green walls)
Stormwater quality monitoring, modelling, and risk assessment
Water Recycling
Integrated urban water planning
Water Sensitive Urban Design (sponge city)

Fields of Research (FoR)

Water Resources Engineering, Environmental Engineering Modelling, Water Quality Engineering, Applied Hydrology (Drainage, Flooding, Irrigation,, Simulation and Modelling

Biography

Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering's Water Research Centre (WRC)

Kefeng is a dedicated researcher with a strong focus on urban water management and the implementation of nature-based green technologies such as bioretention systems and green walls. His expertise lies in understanding the pollution and risks associated with various water sources, including stormwater, greywater, and pre-treated wastewater, and effectively utilizing green technologies to manage these risks. Currently, Kefeng is engaged in developing frameworks for quantifying, controlling, and monitoring the risks associated with stormwater treatment systems, which involves real-time control and monitoring of stormwater treatment systems (ARC DECRA project). By conducting this research, Kefeng aims to encourage the practical implementation of safe stormwater harvesting and water recycling, while advocating for the utilization of nature-based systems for water treatment. In addition to his research pursuits, Kefeng serves as the managing editor for the rapidly expanding journal, Blue-Green Systems (Q1, Cite Score 7.8, SCOPUS 2023).

My Grants

Ongoing

(2022-2025) Passive biofiltration processes for effective nitrogen removal from polluted waters. Deletic A., McCarthy D., Zhang K., Prodanovic V., Cook P., Goonetilleke A., Australian Research Council Discovery Projects (ARC DP)
(2021-2024) From stormwater to potable water via Water Sensitive Urban Design? Framework for risk quantify, control and monitoring of Water Sensitive Urban Design systems for safe stormwater harvesting, Zhang K., Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (ARC DECRA)
(2020-2024) Greywater treatment and reuse using vegetated walls for sustainable urban greening in Qatar, Deletic A., Zhang K., Prodanovic V. Qatar National Research Fund 2020

Completed

(2021-2022) Review of stormwater quality to support the development of evidence-based stormwater recycling guidelines, Zhang K., McCarthy D., Deletic A., Khan Stuart, Le Clech P., Flecher T. Water Research Australia (and its partners)
(2020-2022) Tree-pits for wastewater treatment: Technology development and testing, Deletic A., Prodanovic V., Zhang K. Center of Excellence for Neom Research At KAUST
(2017-2021) All-solid-state Z-scheme photocatalysts for water treatment (ARC Discovery project, UNSW CI)
(2017-2020) Sino-Australia Centre on Sponge City (Research manager), Dajiang Environment.
(2017-2020) Biofiltration Technology for Stormwater Management in Jiangsu. Easthigh Environment.
(2018) Business plan for Sponge City technology and modelling tools in Jiangsu China. Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute Project.
(2018-2019) A framework for evaluating the success of Sponge City (SC) projects (UNSW -SJTU seed projects)
(2019) Cross Faculty Lab for Urban Water Resilience and Sponge Cities (UNSW cross faculty projects)

My Qualifications

PhD, 2015, Monash University, Australia
MsE, 2011, Southeast University, China
BsE, 2008, Southeast University, China

My Awards

3 Nov 2020	Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA, DE210101155), by Australian Research Council
29 Jan 2019	UNSW Award - Promoting High Quality Research Papers Scheme (Key Incentive 1) Publishing manuscript in Water Research journal
July 2018	Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing, in recognition of the contributions made to the quality of the journal Science of The Total Environment (top#10% journal in Environmental Engineering)
April 2017	Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing, in recognition of the contributions made to the quality of the journal Water Research (the No#1 journal in many water/environmental related areas)
6 Oct 2016	Eric Laurenson Medal by Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities and Monash University – awarded to newly graduated PhD for the best PhD thesis in urban water research. The award values highly on the recipient’s ability to communicate their research findings to industry.
15 Jan 2015	The Postgraduate Publication Award (PPA) by Monash University – awarded to high-achieving PhD students towards the end of their doctoral program at Monash.
2014 & 2013	Organisation Excellence – awarded to the successful organisation of a parallel oral presentation section in Research Symposiums by Victorian Association of Chinese PhD students and Young Scholars (VACPs)

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

Areas of supervision

General:

Our WaterGUM group is looking for talented local or international PhD applicants interested in working on the following areas:

Real time control green technologies for stormwater harvesting
Sponge City Green technologies for urban water (stormwater / greywater) management
Urban Flood Risk Mitigation Using Nature-Based Solutions
Integrated Modelling of Urban and Rural Water Systems
Development of Planning Support Tools for Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD)
Water Resources Planning and Management

The suitable candidate will have a background in Civil / Water / Environmental Engineering; Applied Mathematics; or Artificial Intelligence fields. The candidate should have experience for laboratory experiments, or a demonstrated aptitude for programming and an understanding of urban catchment hydrology, urban stormwater management, and GIS software.

The group is also happy to support talented students with UNSW - Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) application.

Please send your CV (stating your average marks for Undergraduate and masters) to Dr Kefeng Zhang (Kefeng.zhang@unsw.edu.au)

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Currently supervising

Ongoing

Yinghui Tang (PhD), 2023 - 2027, Nitrogen removal through simultaneous nitrification, anammox and denitrification (SNAD) process in vegetated biofiltration systems (VBS). Primary supervisor
Tahereh (Sara) Yazdanparast (PhD), 2023 - 2027, Green Wall Technology: Sustainable Solution for Removal of MPs from Greywater.Primary supervisor
Kaixuan Wan (MPhil), 2023- ongoing, Modelling the water balance of green walls treating greywater. Primary supervisor.
JIadong Zhang (PhD), 2022- ongoing, Real time control Green Technologies for stormwater management. Primary supervisor.
Wenhui Wu, 2020 - ongoing, Planning of Water Sensitive Urban Design systems for urban flood mitigation. Secondary supervisor.

Completed

Abd-Ur-Rehman Hafiz Muhammad (Scientia PhD), 2019-2024, Hybrid Green Wall Systems For Wastewater Treatment in Urban Landscape. Primary supervisor.
Lihao Yuan (MPhil), 2021 - 2023, Tree pits for wastewater treatement. Primary supervisor.
Jia, Jing (PhD), 2019-2023. Sponge City Approches for Chinese Superblocks. Joint supervisor.
Zheng, Zhaozhi, 2018- 2022, Using photo-electrochemical oxidation system to treat organic pollutants in stormwater. Primary supervisor.