Leonardo Alfonso is a Civil Engineer of the National University of Colombia, currently holding the position of Associate Professor at IHE Delft. He has a combined consultancy and research experience in water modelling. He holds an MSc degree in Water Science and Engineering, specialisation Hydroinformatics at UNESCO-IHE Delft and a PhD degree from Delft University of Technology and UNESCO-IHE.
He was coordinator of the Hydroinformatics Specialisation from 2018 to 2021, part of the former Water Science and Engineering Master Programme and a component of the Erasmus Mundus Flood Risk Management programme.
Leonardo has several years of teaching experience that complements his practical experience in the field. He completed the University Teaching Qualification (TU Delft) in 2013, as well as a PhD Supervision course (Utrecht University) in 2017. To date, he has co-promoted three PhD students at TU-Delft, and co-mentored two at the University of Cassino (IT), one at Sapienza University (IT), and one at the Minas Gerais University. He is currently co-mentoring one PhD student from the National University of Colombia - Manizales, one from the Sun Yat-Sen University (China) and one from the Harbin Institute of Technology, China.
To date he has supervised more than 30 MSc students on diverse water-related topics. His main teaching tasks include Python Programming, Real-time Control of Water Systems, Decision Support and Software for model integration, common for the new MSc in Water and Sustainable Development in the Digital Innovation and Hydroinformatics profile.
He has participated in several capacity-building activities in Kenya, Rwanda and Myanmar and in Colombia, for which he is Country Coordinator and member of the Academic Research Partnership Colombia - The Netherlands.
He is member of the SENSE Research School, and former member of the Sounding Board of the Orange Knowledge Programme of Nuffic (2019-2021).
Research Summary
Dr. Alfonso has participated in a number of European-funded research projects under the Seventh Framework Programme and H2020. Among others, he co-managed the FP7 KULTURisk project from 2011 to 2014, led the modelling work package of the FP7 WeSenseIt project (2012 - 2016) and managed various tasks in the Waternomics project (2014 - 2017). He is currently involved in the H2020 NAIADES project, where water modelling techniques are used to generate big data to feed an Artificial Intelligence platform to support efficient water management. Recently, he finished the H2020 Ground Truth 2.0 project, where he explores the value of citizen data with respect to monitoring networks.
His research interests are aligned with the three Hydroinformatics Chair research lines:
Data, modelling, uncertainty and risk
- Use of mobile and smartphone technologies for data collection (citizen observatories): complementing in-situ data with dynamic, intermittent, heterogeneous data coming from citizen observations.
- Design and evaluation of (dynamic) monitoring networks.
Systems engineering, optimization and integration
- Multi-objective model-based optimisation of water systems, including design and operation of urban water systems.
Collaborative decision making and Internet-based computing and learning
- Decision making under uncertainty: incorporating decision-maker's beliefs in water-related risks decisions using Value of Information and Prospect Theory concepts.
Other information
Honors & Awards
- 2004 Watermill project fellowship, Dutch Government
- Country Coordinator Award, 2019
External links to projects
- NAIADES - A holistic water ecosystem for digitisation of urban water sector
- Evidence4Policy - Developing the evidence-base in support of water resources management policy in Colombia
- GroundTruth2.0 - Environmental knowledge discovery of human sensed data
- KidronNar - From conflict on wastewater management in the Kidron/Al-Nar basin towards sustainable development by decentralised local solutions for wastewater treatment and reus
- MaMaSe - Improving water safety and security in the Mara River Basin
- WeSenseIt - A Citizen Observatory of Water
- KULTURisk - Knowledge-based approach to develop a culture of risk prevention in Europe
- Climate Adaptation Colombia - A tipping point analysis
- Nuffic Refresher Curse for Latin American Alumni - Integrated River Basin Management under Climate Change (Bogota, 2015)
- MSc thesis