Engineering’s Xiong (Bill) Yu, named Ohio Sea Grant Award recipient

Xiong (Bill) Yu, Opal J. and Richard A Vanderhoof Professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, recently received the Ohio Sea Grant Award, granted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and The Ohio State University. 

Titled “AI-Empowered Smart Sewer Systems for Stormwater Overflow Reduction in the Lake Erie Watershed,” this award provides funding to help Yu and his research team advance smart sewer systems by:

• Reducing stormwater overflow; 
• Improving water quality; and 
• Strengthening the resilience of coastal communities in the Lake Erie watershed. 

About the research

Stormwater overflow poses a significant water quality challenge to the Great Lakes communities, contributing to nutrient pollution, increased pathogen levels and harmful algal blooms. Stormwater overflow, including combined sewer overflows, exacerbate these issues, particularly during extreme weather events which overwhelm the capacity of existing sewer infrastructure.

The proposed smart sewer system framework will be built upon a preliminary framework developed in the dissertation research of Enpei Chen, a PhD student and member of Yu’s Intelligent Infrastructure and Smart Systems Laboratory, to advance AI-enabled smart sewer systems. In previous efforts, Enpei has led the development of a novel recurrent deep reinforcement learning framework for real-time control of urban drainage systems, which effectively mitigate storm overflow with the existing sewer infrastructure. 

With the support of the Ohio Sea Grant, the team plans to integrate AI modeling, predictive analytics and intelligent control strategies to effectively mitigate overflow and demonstrate with community partners in the Lake Erie Watershed. The project will be conducted in collaboration with regional partners, including the City of Rocky River Wastewater Plant, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD), and Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan Sewer District (GCMSD).