Currently at Discipline of Civil Engineering, College of Science and Engineering, Division of Tropical Environments and Societies at James Cook University, Australia. Also associated with: Water Quality and Contaminants Research Group, TropWATER (Centre for Tropical Waters and Aquatic Ecosystem Research), the Economic Geology Research Centre (EGRU) at James Cook University, and CRC-for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC-CARE), University of Newcastle, Australia. He completed his B.Tech. (Hons.) degree in Civil Engineering from the internationally renowned and premiere Engineering University in India, I.I.T Kharagpur,  with first class Honors, and was a rank holder. He then completed his Masters Degree in Civil Engineering with 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.

After completion of his Ph.D. he worked in various 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 was promoted to the Position of Professor in 1995 and also Senior Professor Position in 2009.  There, he also held the positions of Professor and Head of the Civil Engineering Department, and Head of the interdisciplinary Postgraduate 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.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 (dams) 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 integrated Bachelors and Masters degree program in Civil Engineering at I.I.T. Kanpur, during his headship of the Civil Engineering Department. This program was 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 the Water Resources Sector in the state of U.P., India. He has served as a member of the high powered committee of the Government of India for final clearance of Large Scale River Basin Projects, including hydropower projects. At James Cook University he was the project leader and sole PI 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 groundwater pollution, funded by CRC-CARE, University of Newcasle, Australia, and University of South Australia, Adelaide. The total cash funding for this project 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)
• CS4008: Water and Wastewater Engineering (Level 4; TSV)
• CS5108: Advanced Ground Water Modelling and Management (Level 5; TSV)
• CS5208: Advanced Water Resource System Planning and Management (Level 5; TSV)
• CS5308: Advanced Water and Wastewater Engineering (Level 5; TSV)
• CS5402: Advanced Hydraulic and Coastal Engineering (Level 5; TSV)

Interests

Research

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

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

• Lal A and Datta B (in press) Application of the group method of data handling and variable importance analysis for prediction and modelling of saltwater intrusion processes in coastal aquifers. Neural Computing and Applications, , DOI:10.1007/s00521-020-05232-8.
• Lal A and Datta B (2020) Performance evaluation of homogeneous and heterogeneous ensemble models for groundwater salinity predictions: a regional-scale comparison study. Water, Air and Soil Pollution, 231, Article: 320, DOI:10.1007/s11270-020-04693-w.
• Lal A and Datta B (in press) Optimal pumping strategies for the management of coastal groundwater resources: application of Gaussian Process Regression metamodel-based simulation-optimization methodology. ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, , DOI:10.1080/09715010.2019.1599304.
• Neupane R and Datta B (2020) Groundwater flow and multi-component reactive transport simulation of acid mine drainage at a former mine site. International Journal of Geomate, 19 (76), pp. 188-196, DOI:10.21660/2020.76.48092.
• Al-Juboori M and Datta B (2019) Performance evaluation of a genetic algorithm-based linked simulation-optimization model for optimal hydraulic seepage-related design of concrete gravity dams. Journal of Applied Water Engineering and Research, 7 (3), pp. 173-197, DOI:10.1080/23249676.2018.1497558.
• Al-Juboori M and Datta B (2019) Optimum design of hydraulic water retaining structures incorporating uncertainty in estimating heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity utilizing stochastic ensemble surrogate models within a multi-objective multi-realisation optimisation model. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 6 (3), pp. 296-315, DOI:10.1016/j.jcde.2018.12.003.
• Al-Juboori M and Datta B (2019) Minimum cost design of hydraulic water retaining structure by using coupled simulation optimization approach. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 23 (3), pp. 1095-1107, DOI:10.1007/s12205-019-1946-5.
• Amirabdollahian M, Datta B and Beck P (2019) Application of a link simulation optimization model utilizing quantification of hydrogeologic uncertainty to characterize unknown groundwater contaminant sources. Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, 5 (1), pp. 119-131, DOI:10.1007/s40808-018-0522-1.
• Lal A and Datta B (2019) Application of monitoring network design and feedback information for adaptive management of coastal groundwater resources. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16 (22), Article: 4365, DOI:10.3390/ijerph16224365.
• Lal A and Datta B (2019) Optimal groundwater-use strategy for saltwater intrusion management in a Pacific Island country. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 145 (9), Article: 04019032, DOI:10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0001090.
• Lal A and Datta B (2019) Multi-objective groundwater management strategy under uncertainties for sustainable control of saltwater intrusion: solution for an island country in the South Pacific. Journal of Environmental Management, 234, pp. 115-130, DOI:10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.12.054.

Conference Papers

• Hazrati-Yadkoori S and Datta B (2019) Characterization of groundwater contaminant sources by utilizing MARS based surrogate model linked to optimization model. Advances in Computer Communication and Computational Sciences: proceedings of IC4S 2017. In: IC4S 2017: 2nd International Conference on Computer, Communication and Computational Sciences, 11-12 October 2017, Patong, Thailand

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ResearchOnline@JCU stores 123+ research outputs authored by Dr Bithin Datta from 1981 onwards.

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

• Investigation and assessment of groundwater quality and conditions for sustainable management in dry tropical coastal plain aquifer(s): Townsville, Queensland Australia (PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• Development and Application of Sustainable Groundwater Management Strategy utilizing Multi-objective Planning Models to Control Saltwater Intrusion in Coastal Aquifers in Tropical Regions.;; (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Optimal reservoir operation incorporating potential climate change impacts (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Linked Simulation- optimization methodology for reactive contaminant source characterization and optimal design of monitoring networks in abandoned mine sites (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Robust Optimal Management of Saltwater Intrusion in Costal Aquifer Using Couples Simulation - Optimization Compliance Monitoring and Feedback Information. (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)

Completed

• Development of integrated methodologies for optimal monitoring and source characterization in contaminated groundwater systems under uncertainty (2016, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Development of a sustainable groundwater management strategy and sequential compliance monitoring to control saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers (2018, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Seepage criteria based optimal design of water retaining structures with reliability quantification utilizing surrogate model linked simulation-optimization approach (2018, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Optimal identification of unknown groundwater contaminant sources in conjunction with designed monitoring networks (2018, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Development of sustainable groundwater management methodologies to control saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers with application to a tropical Pacific island country (2019, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Development of integrated methodologies for optimal characterization of reactive contaminant sources and monitoring network design in polluted aquifer sites (2016, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Development and evaluation of models for assessing geochemical pollution sources with multiple reactive chemical species for sustainable use of aquifer systems: source characterization and monitoring network design (2020, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)

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.