Dr Kefeng Zhang
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PhD, 2015, Monash University, Australia
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MsE, 2011, Southeast University, China
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BsE, 2008, Southeast University, China
Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering's Water Research Centre (WRC)
Dr. Kefeng Zhang is a Senior Lecturer at the Water Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. He is a dedicated researcher specializing in stormwater management and the application of nature-based solutions (NBS) such as bioretention systems, wetlands, and green walls for urban water treatment. His expertise includes assessing pollution and risks associated with stormwater, greywater, and pre-treated wastewater, and applying NBS to effectively mitigate these risks. He also investigates nutrient dynamics and the fate of emerging contaminants in these systems.
Dr. Zhang was awarded an ARC DECRA Fellowship, through which he developed frameworks for quantifying, controlling, and monitoring risks in stormwater harvesting systems, incorporating real-time control and monitoring technologies.
He is committed to interdisciplinary research, exploring the social, health, and urban cooling benefits of NBS. Through his work, he aims to promote the safe implementation of stormwater harvesting and water recycling, while advocating for the broader adoption of nature-based systems for water treatment.
Dr. Zhang serves as an Associate Editor for Water Research (top 1% in Water Science and Technology) and as a Managing Editor of the rapidly growing journal Blue-Green Systems (top 10% in Water Science and Technology).
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Ongoing
- (2022-2025) Passive biofiltration processes for effective nitrogen removal from polluted waters. Deletic A., McCarthy D., Zhang K., Prodanovic V., Cook P., Goonetilleke A., Australian Research Council Discovery Projects (ARC DP)
- (2021-2024) From stormwater to potable water via Water Sensitive Urban Design? Framework for risk quantify, control and monitoring of Water Sensitive Urban Design systems for safe stormwater harvesting, Zhang K., Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (ARC DECRA)
- (2020-2024) Greywater treatment and reuse using vegetated walls for sustainable urban greening in Qatar, Deletic A., Zhang K., Prodanovic V. Qatar National Research Fund 2020
Completed
- (2021-2022) Review of stormwater quality to support the development of evidence-based stormwater recycling guidelines, Zhang K., McCarthy D., Deletic A., Khan Stuart, Le Clech P., Flecher T. Water Research Australia (and its partners)
- (2020-2022) Tree-pits for wastewater treatment: Technology development and testing, Deletic A., Prodanovic V., Zhang K. Center of Excellence for Neom Research At KAUST
- (2017-2021) All-solid-state Z-scheme photocatalysts for water treatment (ARC Discovery project, UNSW CI)
- (2017-2020) Sino-Australia Centre on Sponge City (Research manager), Dajiang Environment.
- (2017-2020) Biofiltration Technology for Stormwater Management in Jiangsu. Easthigh Environment.
- (2018) Business plan for Sponge City technology and modelling tools in Jiangsu China. Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute Project.
- (2018-2019) A framework for evaluating the success of Sponge City (SC) projects (UNSW -SJTU seed projects)
- (2019) Cross Faculty Lab for Urban Water Resilience and Sponge Cities (UNSW cross faculty projects)
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA, DE210101155), by Australian Research Council |
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UNSW Award - Promoting High Quality Research Papers Scheme (Key Incentive 1) |
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Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing, in recognition of the contributions made to the quality of the journal Science of The Total Environment (top#10% journal in Environmental Engineering) |
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Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing, in recognition of the contributions made to the quality of the journal Water Research (the No#1 journal in many water/environmental related areas) |
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Eric Laurenson Medal by Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities and Monash University – awarded to newly graduated PhD for the best PhD thesis in urban water research. The award values highly on the recipient’s ability to communicate their research findings to industry. |
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The Postgraduate Publication Award (PPA) by Monash University – awarded to high-achieving PhD students towards the end of their doctoral program at Monash. |
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Organisation Excellence – awarded to the successful organisation of a parallel oral presentation section in Research Symposiums by Victorian Association of Chinese PhD students and Young Scholars (VACPs) |
Working relationship with:
- Water Research Australia
- Melbourne Water
- Sydney Water
- Cooks Rivier Alliance
- Georges Riverkeeper
- Stormwater NSW
- Monash University
International collaboration:
- EAWAG (Switzerland)
- HBKU (Qatar)
- KAUST (Saudi Arabia)
My Research Supervision
Ongoing
- Fathiya Mufidah (PhD), 2025 - 2028, Fate of tire-wear derived organic chemicals in stormwater bioretention systems. Primary supervisor
- Zile Wang (MPhil), 2024-2025, Data-Driven Approaches for Managing Water Quality in Urban Rivers , primary supervisor
- Yinghui Tang (PhD), 2023 - 2027, Nitrogen removal through simultaneous nitrification, anammox and denitrification (SNAD) process in vegetated biofiltration systems (VBS). Primary supervisor
- Tahereh (Sara) Yazdanparast (PhD), 2023 - 2027, Green Wall Technology: Sustainable Solution for Removal of MPs from Greywater.Primary supervisor
- Kaixuan Wan (MPhil), 2023- ongoing, Modelling the water balance of green walls treating greywater. Primary supervisor.
- JIadong Zhang (PhD), 2022- ongoing, Real time control Green Technologies for stormwater management. Primary supervisor.
- Wenhui Wu, 2020 - ongoing, Planning of Water Sensitive Urban Design systems for urban flood mitigation. Secondary supervisor.
Completed
- Abd-Ur-Rehman Hafiz Muhammad (Scientia PhD), 2019-2024, Hybrid Green Wall Systems For Wastewater Treatment in Urban Landscape. Primary supervisor.
- Lihao Yuan (MPhil), 2021 - 2023, Tree pits for wastewater treatement. Primary supervisor.
- Jia, Jing (PhD), 2019-2023. Sponge City Approches for Chinese Superblocks. Joint supervisor.
- Zheng, Zhaozhi, 2018- 2022, Using photo-electrochemical oxidation system to treat organic pollutants in stormwater. Primary supervisor.
My Teaching
CVEN9625- Fundamentals of Water Engineering
CVEN9611 - Urban Hydrology and Stormwater Management (Water Sensitive Urban Design)