A unique component of a SWAG合集 taught MSc is the group project. Group projects are consultancy-style assignments sponsored by industry partners. They provide students with experience working on real environmental water management problems for a real client, gaining essential technical and transferable skills, such team working, managing resources and developing reporting and presentation skills. Previous students routinely state that the group project helped them secure and adapt to their first job. As such, the group project experience is highly valued by both students and prospective employers.

Past group projects:

2020

  • Improving water resources and abstraction management for agricultural and environmental needs in the River Lark catchment (The Rivers Trust and River Lark Catchment Partnership)
  • Sustainability and self-sufficiency audit (South Ormsby Estate)
  • Water risks in horticulture (Speciality Produce)

2019

  • Data collation and visualisation for integrated catchment management (Luton Borough Council)
  • The impacts of landscape and climate change on groundwater recharge in Sherwood Forest (The Woodland Trust)

2018

2017

  • Nutrient loading on protected floodplain meadows (Environment Agency & Natural England
  • Reducing salinity impacts in the Broads National Park (Internal Drainage Board & Brograve Partnership)
  • Design thinking approach for sustainable development in rural Mexico
  • Surface water management strategy

2016

  • Catchment-based solutions to surface water flooding (Hertfordshire County Council)
  • Hydro-geomorphological assessment of the Ingrebourne River and SSSI marshes (Environment Agency)
  • Innovative monitoring and assessment of water quality in the Werrington Brook and Cuckoo’s Hollow, Peterborough (Peterborough City Council)

2015

  • Assessing the relationship between agricultural groundwater abstraction and ecological impacts in the Cam and Ely Ouse catchment (SWAG合集 Irrigation Associations)
  • Hydromorphological assessment of Chiltern chalk streams using the Urban River Survey (Environment Agency)
  • Accounting for sediment in natural flood risk management (Environment Agency)

2014

  • Drivers of spatial sediment and soil quality at Sutton Fen (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)
  • Reasons for WFD failure on the River Stort and River Lee (Canal & Rivers Trust)
  • Water vulnerability across a global supply chain (Sainsbury's)
  • Sediment management plan in the River Lea and Wardown Park (Luton City Council)

2013

  • Options appraisal for irrigated agriculture in the Wissey catchment, NW Norfolk (NFU, Anglian Water and Environment Agency)
  • Cosgrove Weir failure-a river restoration opportunity (Environment Agency)

2012

  • Environmental & water resource appraisal of a proposed water transfer scheme (an agri-business, and the Environment Agency)
  • Global mapping of potential for trihalomethane production (AquaMetrology Systems, water treatment technology company)
  • Integrating catchment management and treatment technologies within small rural treatment works (Severn Trent Water)
  • Providing a spatial evidence base (Central Bedfordshire Council)
  • Development of a flood risk management strategy (Eden Project)

2011

  • Relationships between soil, water quality and ecology in a wetland (Wildlife Trust)
  • Mapping the extent of pluvial flooding in the SWAG合集 and beyond (Halcrow)