The ITT and the ENREM Coordination Team organized an excursion to Spain with the ITT students of the 3rd semester. The excursion took place from the 3rd to the 9th of November with 41 students and 6 staff members.
During the excursion the students visited multiple institutions and research facilities related to environmental and resource management, land use, integrated water management and renewable energy resources.
The excursion began on Malaga, Spain. Each student was responsible of arriving on time the day before the official beginning of the excursion, November 4th, 2013.
On the first day of the excursion the students got the chance to visit EMASA's installations for Potable Water (ETAP) and Waste Water Treatment (EDAR) where they were received by plant directors to give them a guided tour of the process inside the plant. The excursion also integrated some cultural events into the programme, giving students the opportunity to get to know the Spanish history, traditions and culture. After the visits to EMASA's installations we continued with a tour of Malaga's Historic City Centre and the Alcazaba Fortress.
On the second day we made are way up to Granada, passing through the Guadalfeo River Basin and visiting several different water installations: The Rules Dam, Dique El Granadino and the Pampaneira Hidroelectric Station. Once in Granada the students got the chance to visit the world famous Alhambra, one of the best preserved Moorish Palaces in Europe.
The first stop of the third day was in Almeria, on the installations of IFAPA, a research and training institute for agricultural and fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture of Andalucía. Afterwards we proceeded to one of the first solar research facilities in the world, Plataforma Solar Almeria.
We began the fourth day of the excursion by visiting the installations of the solar tower installation, PS10 in Seville, the first installation to commercially generate electricity using this type of technology. Our second stop was on Hydrographical Confederation of Guadalquivir, where they explain the advantages of the installed monitoring system.
On the fifth and last day of the excursion we visited the Urban Planing Department of the Municipality of Sevilla where they presented several on-going urban planning projects and demonstrated the monitoring system they have in place to aid them on the decision making for future plans. To end the excursion one of the ITT lecturers, Prof. Dr. Johannes Hamhaber took the students through a tour of Seville highlighting Urban Planning aspects and the decision making that led to the current city layout.