Environmental Hydraulics of Open Channel Flows: Advanced Modelling and Artificial Intelligence Techniques
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydraulics and Hydrodynamics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2026 | Viewed by 204
Special Issue Editors
Interests: urban drainage systems; flood risk management; sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS); climate change adaptation; hydraulic and hydrological modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: water resources management; river hydraulics; environmental hydraulics; flood modelling; decision support systems
Interests: artificial intelligence; contaminant detection; hydraulic and environmental control; real-time control in irrigation canals and distribution water networks; urban drainage
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Open channel flows are at the core of river, irrigation, and urban water systems, governing not only hydrodynamics but also the transportation, mixing, and fate of pollutants, nutrients, and sediments. Recent advances in sensing technologies, numerical modeling, and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming these systems into intelligent infrastructures capable of real-time environmental monitoring and adaptive control.
This Special Issue focuses on integrating environmental hydraulics with AI-based techniques for the detection, prediction, and mitigation of water quality hazards in open channels. Contributions are encouraged on topics including machine learning, neural networks, and data-driven digital twins for contaminant source identification, water quality estimation, and early-warning systems. A key emphasis is placed on the use of hydraulic control elements, such as gates, weirs, and pumping stations, not only to regulate water levels and flows but also to actively manage environmental processes, including pollutant dispersion, dilution, oxygen transfer, and residence time.
Topics of interest include real-time control of canal and river networks for pollution mitigation, eco-hydraulic control strategies, coupled hydraulic–water quality models, and AI-based decision-support systems for smart and resilient water infrastructures. By linking hydraulics, environmental processes, and intelligent control, this Special Issue aims to advance sustainable and climate-resilient open-channel water systems.
Prof. Dr. Beniamino Russo
Dr. Maria Teresa Yubero
Guest Editors
Dr. Enrique Bonet
Guest Editor Assistant
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- open channel flow
- artificial intelligence
- water quality monitoring
- contaminant detection
- hydraulic and environmental control
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