Course descriptionSchedule: Oct 2011 to Jul 2012
Place: Madrid
Price: €14,070
Dedication: Full Time
Length: 700 hours (70 credits)
Compulsory subjects (100 hours)
Economic environment
Throughout this course, participants will address the ideas, procedures and basic tools for analysing the economic environment. In this regard, macroeconomic concepts are explored along with the global economic environment, financial and external markets and economic policies. You will acquire basic essential knowledge about business and the environment.
This course enables you to understand and deepen the concepts, procedures and basic tools of financially managing a company. This addresses accounting in decision making, economic and financial analysis, financial calculations and analysis of investment.
Marketing
You'll find out the basics of marketing, covering its different areas of activity from a holistic perspective. To this end, concepts such as market, product, pricing, sales activities, market communication and planning will be analysed, enabling you to become aware of this important business function.
Introduction to sustainability
No company director in the 21st century can lack a global vision about the social, environmental and economic challenges facing modern society. Long-term sustainable business management is not only key to business survival but fundamental for the future of the planet and its resources.
Innovation
We prepare you to develop a management mindset that is familiar with business innovation and sustainability as key elements of business competitiveness. This is one of EOI's clear commitments as a School: all managers and leaders of tomorrow need a solid base in innovation methodologies and concepts to help introduce innovative practices in any process.
Entrepreneurship
In addition to leading and managing a company, a manager must foster a climate to develop entrepreneurial spirit. This module explains how to produce the process of creating ideas, analyse, execute and implement them through projects that create value for organisations and society. It gives students the technical knowledge and basic management skills required for entrepreneurs in the process of creating their business plan. It also enables students to develop a Business Plan, with all its complexity.
Management skills
This module is geared towards the participant's personal development, working the skills needed to meet management challenges in a practical way by exercising it individually to control situations. We work on interpersonal skills relating to communication, time management, effective presentations, negotiating and leadership as well as motivating teams.
Strategy
What is business strategy and what impact does it have on your daily life? You'll analyse the industry and generic internal circumstances of companies that compete in it. You'll diagnose the specific business situation, possible ways to compete and be able to determine the objectives to specify how they are going to be achieved.
Project management
Project management is an activity that allows resources to be managed more efficiently, a good cost control and meeting project deadlines. You'll learn the different aspects and techniques related to project planning, design, management and control, understanding and analysing the various life stages of a project and its related activities and tasks. This education applies to all projects regardless of their nature and complexity.
Core subjects (470 hours)
Introduction to the integrated water cycle
This begins with a brief reference to the path travelled by the water for use in different sectors. To do this, collection, use and return to nature is described. This is a first approach to the integral cycle, which is followed by exploring some concepts and tools required to tackle other areas in the master programme.
You will explore climatology in depth, which is a fundamental area for managing water that is also becoming increasingly important due to climate change; the use of geographic information systems (GIS) as an essential tool for land management and its relationship with water; hydraulics, which is a basic area to understand and calculate various infrastructure used throughout the entire cycle; hydrogeology, which is essential to understand the land/water link; water chemistry to determine the behaviour of natural and xenobiotic substances that water may contain throughout its cycle and microbiological and ecological fundamentals to study the evolution of the wide variety of microorganisms that appear throughout the cycle, establishing the interaction of different qualities of water with nature. These are all areas that will enable you to consolidate the knowledge acquired during the master programme.
Drinking water management
From a perspective of optimally managing collected water, different ways of obtaining and treating water for it to be used for drinking are presented. Different drinking water treatment operations are studied according to their origin, surface or underground, and their quality. Special emphasis is placed on process and quality controls.
Different alternatives to managing sludge generated in purification are studied. Solving the problem generated with waste products is dealt with, consisting mainly of water, recovering substances that can be reused in the treatment process as far as possible. In addition to surface water and groundwater, brackish water and, in its absence sea water, is increasingly being desalinated in coastal areas. Desalination is usually performed by a known, yet sophisticated, technology such as reverse osmosis. The performance of different membranes will be studied by looking into their composition and structure as well as the different configurations, problems linked to the operation, preconditioning, and managing so-called rejection.
Once the water is drinkable, it must be transported to distribution and consumption points. These are complex networks for which the different materials that they are composed of have to be decided on as well as the drive systems, control variables and factors used to control them.
Managers and professionals involved in distributing water are showing growing concern towards avoiding unnecessary water consumption; there are tools to optimise needs and these tools are particularly necessary in times and places with shortages, such as in Spain and a significant part of its regions. In this area, the fundamentals of management will be explored.
Wastewater management
In an increasingly urban society, issues related to collecting wastewater are transformed into complex networks for which it is necessary to have as much real-time information as possible and thus increase the control elements of both quantity as well as quality. In addition infrastructure with increasing importance in wastewater management such as the so-called "storm tanks" will be analysed and studied to avoid abrupt changes in the quantity and quality of water to be treated in sewage works and prevent the WWTP from destabilising.
Physical, chemical and biological variables are studied that are necessary to characterise wastewater; in addition to the usual variables, referring to new contaminants. Characterising wastewater is essential when designing a treatment plant.
The different parts of a WWTP are thoroughly reviewed, from pre-treatment to physical, biological and tertiary treatments. The processes involved in treatment, equipment and distribution are covered. Special mention is made to removing nutrients, through chemical and biological methods, and different alternatives for tertiary treatment. The various operational problems linked to the temporal variability of the quantity and quality of water arriving at a wastewater treatment plant are described and analysed. Sludge conditioning operations are a fundamental part of modern WWTPs. Both quantity, in Spain over 2M Tm of sludge is produced, as well as quality of conditioning deserve special mention.
This is a key concern for managers of a WWTP Despite the diversity of water generated in the industry, an approach will be made designed to show the main problems related to managing and treating industrial water. The characteristics required by industrial wastewater to be treated as domestic water will be described.
Despite the variety of industrial wastewater treatment, examples will be given of typical treatments in different sectors. Special reference is made to the aspects that differentiate it from domestic sewage.
Water reuse
One of the greatest future potentials to increase the amount of available water is reuse. This is a powerful tool that managers of this resource have. According to most studies, up to 50% of water for domestic consumption can be reused.
The conditions are set for reuse in response to legislation; a comprehensive review of reuse conditions will be set and the key criteria for each application will be addressed. For example, the concentration of salts in irrigation water.
Strategies for managing surface and ground water resources. Water basin management
A review is carried out of legislation on water issues both at a European level (Framework Directive 2000/60, Directives on drinking water and wastewater) with their influence on Spanish law such as the Water Act (RD 1/2001) and other related decrees. Reference is also made to certain regional legislation on the subject. The level of involvement and responsibility of various local, regional, national and European Community governments in resource management is established from the legislation.
Economic aspects linked to water resources are increasingly important since the entry into force of the DM that makes explicit references to cost recovery. The economic value of water and related activities are analysed in this part of the programme.
The water/energy energy/water link is taking on increasing importance in our society. Water consumption in energy production and energy consumption in water management are aspects that must be explored in depth to achieve optimal management of these two fundamental resources.
Climate change will have a decisive role on the resource. The more established effects of climate change include its variability. It is foreseeable that natural risks associated with that variability will be intensified, so it is necessary to explore the management tools relating to droughts, high-water levels and floods in depth.
Electives (30 hours)
Free-choice subjects
So you can enrich your training, taking into account your interests or your future career path, you must select from a range of proposed subjects. Each optional module/subject is taught with a minimum of 8 accepted and enrolled students.
Some of the topics selected by participants in previous years are listed below:
* Chief Auditor
* Water and Development
* Environmental Impact Assessment
* International cooperation for development
Project (100 hours)
End of master degree project
During the last months of the academic year, you will carry out a technical end of master degree project where you must apply the knowledge acquired. The project is carried out under the guidance of a tutor who is an expert in the subject matter. Advocating the project before a panel of judges is a prerequisite for obtaining a master's degree. Sometimes the project is led by partner companies and institutions outside of EOI that suggest ideas, topics and proposals to be studied and analysed by participants.
The Master in Water Engineering and Management begins in October and ends in July
It is equivalent to 70 credits spread over:
* 60 credits relating to the academic load (study and work)
* 10 credits for the project