Engineering Student Wins Best Paper Award for Water and Energy Use Study

A doctoral student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Utah State University has received the prestigious Best Research-Oriented Paper award from the Environmental and Water Resources Institute.

Adel M. Abdallah was recognized for his research paper “Heterogeneous residential water and energy linkages and implications for conservation and management.” The study, published March 2014 in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, was co-authored by Abdallah’s academic adviser, David E. Rosenberg, Ph.D., and funded by the Utah Water Research Laboratory.

Abdallah says the paper used a novel method and large amounts of data to quantify the linkages between water and energy use in homes in the United States by considering uncertainty in technologic, demographic, and behavior use factors.

“This research helps water and energy utilities exploit the synergies between these two resources to conserve both of them at once,” he explained.

The journal, published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, publishes approximately 100 research papers per year on all aspects of planning and management of water resources.

“Winning the Best Research Oriented Paper Award is an incredible recognition to the quality and rigor of research we are performing here at USU and the Utah Water Research Lab,” said Abdallah. “It is solid evidence of the dedication and commitment of my major adviser and co-author, Dr. Rosenberg, during my master’s degree. I’m planning to pursue my career in research and academia so the award is an important milestone in my career.”

Rosenberg said the award is the second best paper award he and a student have received for conservation research from ASCE in the past three years. In 2013, Francisco Suero won the Quentin Martin Best Practice Paper Award for his paper “Estimating and Verifying United States Households’ Potential to Conserve Water.”

“Conservation research is an important part of the UWRL research portfolio and is helping Utah reach the governor’s goal to reduce water use 25 percent by 2025,” said Rosenberg. “Adel’s work identifies several water conservation strategies that can help us get there and simultaneously reduce energy use.”

EWRI will present the award during the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2015 in Austin, Texas, during the Planning and Management Council Luncheon and Awards Ceremony May 19.

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Contact: David Rosenberg, 435-797-8689, david.rosenberg@usu.edu

Writer: Matt Jensen, 435-797-8170, matthew.jensen@usu.edu