Currently at Discipline of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at James Cook University, Australia, also Team Leader, Water Quality and Contaminants Research Group, TropWATER (Centre for Tropical Waters and Aquatic Ecosystem Research) at James Cook University, and at CRC-for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC-CARE), Adelaide. He completed his B.Tech. (Hons.) degree from the internationally renowned and premiere Engineering University in India, I.I.T Kgp, , with First Class Honors, and was a rank holder. He then completed his Masters Degree in Civil Engineering with the first rank in his specialization.  He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in U.S.A.  Specializing in Hydraulics and Systems Engineering, with a Major in Water Resources and Minor in Industrial and Systems Engineering.

   He worked in Post-Doctoral Research Positions at University of Washington, Seattle, WA, U.S.A., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, U.S.A., and then as a Research Faculty at University of California, Davis, CA, U.S.A.,  totaling bout 11 years. He then joined the Civil Engineering Department at IIT Kanpur in India, and advanced to the Position of Professor in 1995 and also Senior Professor Position in 2009.  There, he also held the position of Professor and Head of Civil Engineering, and Head of the Environmental Engineering and Management Program.  He also served as Visiting Professor at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, Denmark Technical University, Copenhagen, and Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok. He has guided many Master’s Theses and has completed guidance of many Ph.D. theses, at I.T. Kanpur India, then at James Cook University,  and one at University of South Australia, Adelaide. He has authored: many Technical Articles in very reputed peer reviewed international Journals, Book Chapters, and numerous Conference papers. He is also internationally well known for his pioneering research work on Optimal Identification of unknown pollution sources in contaminated Groundwater aquifers,  design of optimal monitoring networks incorporating  uncertainties for management of contaminated aquifers, management of coastal aquifers for saltwater intrusion control and remediation, and real-time operation of water reservoir systems. He was the Co-chair of the  ASCE-EWRI  (American Society of Civil Engineers- Environmental and Water  Resources Institute) International conference on Water and Environmental Systems held first time outside U.S.A. He also, served as an advisor in the Water Resources Systems Technical Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

     He was instrumental in guiding to successful completion a new and successful integrated Bachelor's and Masters degree program at I.I.T. Kanpur, during his headship of the Civil Engineering Department designed to attract the best student talents to postgraduate studies in Engineering. He has been the  project leader in a number of state of the art  applied mega research projects related to Hydrologic Modeling and Water Resources/ Groundwater Management, first in U.S.A., then in India. He has worked as advisor to the U.P. government in the World Bank supported project on Restructuring of Water Resources Sector in the state of U.P., India. He has served as a member of the high power committee of Government of India for final clearance of Large Scale River Basin Projects, including hydropower projects. At James Cook University he is the project leader of a Mega, technology development project: developing computational tools for identification of unknown groundwater pollution sources and optimal design of monitoring networks for detection of pollution, funded by CRC-CARE, University of South Australia, Adelaide. The total cash funding including additional full Scholarship support for Ph.D. students, and dedicated project funding amounts to $629,000.00, starting in 2009.

Teaching

• CS2002: Catchment, Stream and Lake Engineering (Level 2; TSV)
• CS4002: Hydraulic and Coastal Engineering (Level 4; TSV)
• CS4008: Water and Wastewater Engineering (Level 4; TSV)

Interests

Research

• Water Resources Systems Management; Systems Engineering; Groundwater Contamination Management; Coastal Aquifer Saltwater intrusion control; Reservoir Operations

Research Disciplines

• Civil Engineering (0905)
• Environmental Engineering (0907)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Land and Water Management (9609)

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Datta B, Durand F, Laforge S, Prakash O, Esfahani H, Chadalavada S and Naidu R (2016) Preliminary hydrogeological modeling and optimal monitoring network design for a contaminated abandoned mine site area: application of developed monitoring network design software. Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 8 (1). pp. 46-64
• Datta B, Amirabdollahian M, Zuo R and Prakash O (2016) Groundwater contamination plume delineation using local singularity mapping technique. International Journal of GEOMATE, 11 (25). pp. 2435-2441
• Esfahani H and Datta B (2016) Linked optimal reactive contaminant source characterization in contaminated mine sites: case study. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 142 (12). pp. 1-14
• Amirabdollahian M and Datta B (2015) Reliability evaluation of groundwater contamination source characterization under uncertain flow field. International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, 6 (7). pp. 512-518
• Esfahani H and Datta B (2015) Simulation of reactive geochemical transport processes in contaminated aquifers using surrogate models. International Journal of Geomate, 8 (15). pp. 1190-1196
• Jha M and Datta B (2015) Application of unknown groundwater pollution source release history estimation methodology to distributed sources incorporating surface-groundwater interactions. Environmental Forensics, 16 (2). pp. 143-162
• Jha M and Datta B (2015) Application of dedicated monitoring: network design for unknown pollutant-source identification based on dynamic time warping. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 141 (11). pp. 1-13
• Prakash O and Datta B (2015) Groundwater characterization of pollutant sources in contaminated aquifers by integrating sequential-monitoring-network design and source identification: methodology and an application in Australia. Hydrogeology Journal, 23 (6). pp. 1089-1107
• Sreekanth J and Datta B (2015) Review: simulation-optimization models for the management and monitoring of coastal aquifers. Hydrogeology Journal, 23. pp. 1155-1166

Book Chapters

• singh D and Datta B (2016) Linked optimization model for groundwater monitoring network design. In: Urban Hydrology, Watershed Management and Socio-Economic Aspects. Water Science and Technology Library, 73. Springer, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 107-125
• Esfahani H and Datta B (2015) Use of genetic programming based surrogate models to simulate complex geochemical transport processes in contaminated mine sites. In: Handbook of Genetic Programming Applications. Springer, New York, NY, USA, pp. 359-379

Conference Papers

• Esfahani H and Datta B (2015) Simulation of complex geochemical processes in contaminated aquifer sites using surrogate models as approximate simulators. Abstracts from the 6th International Contaminated Site Remediation Conference. In: CleanUp 2015: 6th International Contaminated Site Remediation Conference, 13-16 September 2015, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

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These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• Robust Optimal Management of Saltwater Intrusion in Costal Aquifer Using Couples Simulation - Optimization Compliance Monitoring and Feedback Information. (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Evaluation of Mathematical Models and Tools for Assessing Groundwater Quality, Availability and Sustainability in Ground Water-Aquifer Resource Systems. (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Optimal Dynamic Monitoring Network Design and Identification of Unknown Groundwater Pollution Sources (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Optimum Hydraulic Design of Cutoff in Dams. (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Development of Sustainable Ground Water Management Strategy with Sequential Compliance Monitoring to control Saltwater Intrusion in Coastal Aquifers (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Development of Sustainable Groundwater Management Methodologies to Control Saltwater Intrusion into Coastal Aquifers and an application to a coastal aquifer in Tropical Pacific Island Country (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Multiple-Objective Optimal Groundwater Monitoring Network Design for Initial Detection of a Contaminant Plume Under Conditions of Uncertainty (Masters , Primary Advisor)

Completed

• Development of integrated methodologies for optimal monitoring and source characterization in contaminated groundwater systems under uncertainty (2016, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Development of integrated methodologies for optimal characterization of reactive contaminant sources and monitoring network design in polluted aquifer sites (2016, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Optimal monitoring network design and identification of unknown pollutant sources in polluted aquifers (2014, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Linked simulation-optimization based methodologies for unknown groundwater pollutant source identification in managed and unmanaged contaminated sites (2013, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Integrated multi-objective management of saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers using coupled simulation-optimisation and monitoring feedback information (2012, PhD , Primary Advisor)

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.