Doctoral School

Reading date: 07/10/2026

• SANCHEZ RUIZ, EDUARDO ALONSO: Governance for Sustainable Water Resources Management in Semi-Arid Regions: Evidence from Piura, Peru
  
  Author: SANCHEZ RUIZ, EDUARDO ALONSO
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN SUSTAINABILITY
  Department: University Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology (IS.UPC)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Deposit date: 17/09/2026
  Reading date: 07/10/2026
  Reading time: 10:30
  Reading place: UPC Campus Nord, ETSECCPB, C/ Jordi Girona 1-3, edificio C1, Sala 002, Barcelona
  Thesis director: CREMADES OLIVER, LAZARO VICENTE
  Thesis abstract: Semi-arid regions face increasing pressure on water resources due to climatic variability, unequal service conditions, institutional fragmentation, and growing demand for more reliable information and coordinated decision-making. This doctoral thesis examines sustainable Water Resources Management (WRM) in semi-arid regions through a governance-capacity perspective, using Piura, Peru, as the empirical case. The thesis is presented as a compendium of three peer-reviewed publications that address drinking water access inequalities, territorial water vulnerability, and smart technology adoption for WRM.The general objective is to analyze how governance capacity can support sustainable WRM by integrating territorial diagnosis, multidimensional vulnerability assessment, and adoption-oriented management. The research follows a sequential and integrative logic. The first publication develops a territorial and institutional diagnosis of drinking water access inequalities in Piura. The second publication assesses territorial water vulnerability through a multidimensional framework based on structural, climatic, and institutional factors at provincial scale. The third publication synthesizes peer-reviewed evidence on smart technologies for WRM in semi-arid Latin American contexts, focusing on operational outcomes, governance barriers, enabling conditions, and adoption requirements.The findings show that drinking water access inequalities in Piura are shaped by territorial disparities, service reliability, monitoring limitations, and fragmented governance arrangements. Territorial water vulnerability emerges from the interaction of structural, climatic, and institutional conditions, requiring spatially differentiated planning and prioritization. Smart technologies can strengthen WRM by improving observability, forecasting, and early warning systems. They also support water quality surveillance, leakage detection, allocation control, and decision-making processes. However, their long-term value depends on interoperability, adequate financing, technical capacity, effective operation and maintenance, sound data governance, and well-established institutional routines.The thesis contributes to sustainable WRM by framing access, vulnerability, and smart technology adoption as connected dimensions of governance capacity. It shows that sustainable WRM in semi-arid regions requires the ability to coordinate institutions, generate and use territorial evidence, prioritize interventions, adopt appropriate technologies, and sustain management practices over time. The proposed perspective provides insights for Piura and for comparable semi-arid regions facing water stress, service inequality, hydro-climatic variability, and fragmented governance systems.
  

• VILÀ INSA, MARC: Noncoherent detection and spatial cyclostationarity with massive arrays
  
  Author: VILÀ INSA, MARC
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN SIGNAL THEORY AND COMMUNICATIONS
  Department: Department of Signal Theory and Communications (TSC)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 07/09/2026
  Reading date: 07/10/2026
  Reading time: 12:00
  Reading place: Aula de Teleensenyament ETSETB, Edifici B3, Campus Nord, Barcelona
  Thesis director: RIBA SAGARRA, JAUME
  Thesis abstract: Since the advent of digital communication technologies, wireless systems have relied on precise and regularly updated knowledge about the physical medium, referred to as channel state information (CSI). This resource has played a central role in the deployment of modern wireless networks, enabling the monumental growth in transmission rates and data coverage demanded by the current information era. In recent times, however, emerging use cases are revealing practical scenarios in which the acquisition of reliable CSI becomes spectrally inefficient or even infeasible. Clear examples may be found in industrial internet of things (IIoT), where communication is performed through small data packets and latency requirements outweigh throughput needs. Such characteristics appear antagonistic to pilot-based coherent detection, a discrepancy which is also present in systems over high mobility environments, characterized by very short coherence blocks. This has led some authors to reassess whether coherent approaches are the most suitable solutions to implement these applications, envisioned for next generation wireless systems.This shift in state-of-the-art communication theory has rekindled an interest in alternative strategies for wireless data transmission, particularly noncoherent detection. Systems operating noncoherently are those that bypass the need for instantaneous CSI, and rely instead on a crude statistical description of fading and noise. It is precisely within this context that the present thesis is embedded. This work contributes to the noncoherent communication corpus by exploring fundamental limitations of wireless systems based on massive arrays. Most notably, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions to achieve asymptotically error-free communication by increasing transmitted power and the number of receiving antennas, and relate them to unavoidable error floors found throughout the literature. These results are obtained by leveraging first principles from detection theory, thus remaining interpretable and insightful in light of investigating codeword design.Afterwards, the theory developed is harnessed to devise energy-based noncoherent systems that employ massive antenna arrays to improve communication reliability. In particular, we study a one-shot detection problem and conceive a family of suboptimal receivers founded on quadratic statistics of data. These approaches are then used as the building blocks of an index modulation scheme over orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). The solution obtained shows promising results, with near-optimal performance in a variety of scenarios at a fraction of the computational cost of maximum likelihood detection.In parallel, we study the spectral theory of periodically correlated stochastic processes, which naturally appear in some space-time noncoherent problems under spatially stationary fading. We develop a novel treatment based on the Karhunen-Loève representation of cyclostationary processes, and relate it to classical time-frequency approaches under the same framework. As a use case of interest, these techniques are applied to draw ultimate performance limits on a variety of Wiener filtering problems from a unified perspective. Finally, we utilize this toolkit to provide insights on noncoherent codeword detection and implement low-complexity receivers that exploit spectral approximations of data.
  

Reading date: 08/10/2026

• AGUILERA VIDAL, MARIA: Compound Rainfall-Wave Extremes in the Spanish Mediterranean: dependence structure, spatio-temporal variability, and climate change attribution
  
  Author: AGUILERA VIDAL, MARIA
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN MARINE SCIENCES
  Department: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DECA)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 04/09/2026
  Reading date: 08/10/2026
  Reading time: 15:00
  Reading place: Place: ETSECCPBUPC, Campus NordBuilding C1. Classroom: 002C/Jordi Girona, 1-308034 Barcelona
  Thesis director: JIMENEZ QUINTANA, JOSE ANTONIO
  Thesis abstract: Compound coastal flooding along the Spanish Mediterranean coast is primarily driven by the interaction between intense rainfall and energetic wave storms, which constitute the dominant terrestrial and marine flood drivers in this microtidal environment. This thesis develops an integrated framework to characterize rainfall-wave compound hazards by combining observational datasets, wave reanalysis, copula-based dependence analysis, synoptic weather classification, and climate-model attribution techniques. The framework examines how compound hazards vary across space, evolve over time, respond to climate change, and generate spatially connected impacts.The results reveal a pronounced spatial organization of compound hazard. Northern Catalonia and central Valencia emerge as the main hotspots, where compound events occur more frequently, exhibit stronger statistical dependence, and systematically more intense than single-driver extremes. Temporal analyses further show that rainfall-wave dependence has strengthened over recent decades along the northern Catalan coast, increasing the synchronization between both hazards and the probability of joint extremes. This evolution is accompanied by a greater likelihood of extreme precipitation. These changes are linked to an increased frequency of the dominant synoptic configurations, particularly Mediterranean cyclones and northern-blocking situations, that favour the concurrence of heavy rainfall and energetic wave conditions.Climate-change attribution demonstrate that the most severe compound events already exhibit a detectable anthropogenic signal through the intensification of extreme precipitation, substantially increasing the likelihood of rare compound extremes under present-day climate conditions. Beyond local hazard interactions, the thesis also demonstrates that compound flooding is inherently spatially connected. The same atmospheric configurations responsible for the strongest local compound events also generate widespread impacts extending from Catalonia to central Valencia, with Storm Gloria (January 2020) representing a characteristic example of this synoptic regime.Overall, this thesis demonstrates that compound coastal flood hazard in the western Mediterranean cannot be adequately understood using a single-driver, stationary, or purely local approaches. Instead, robust hazard assessment requires explicitly accounting for multivariate and evolving hazard conditions partly influenced by anthropogenic climate change, as well as for the spatial connectivity among driving processes across the region and the role of large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. The integrated framework developed here provides a transferable methodology for improving compound flood assessments, supporting climate-resilient coastal planning, and advancing the understanding of compound coastal hazards in Mediterranean and other microtidal, wave-dominated environments.
  

• GARCIA SALANOVA, ANTONIO: Arquitectura amb propòsit per a una gestió sostenible dels equipaments públics
  
  Author: GARCIA SALANOVA, ANTONIO
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ARCHITECTURAL, CIVIL AND URBAN HERITAGE AND REFURBISHMENT OF EXISTING BUILDINGS
  Department: Departamento de Representación Arquitectónica (RA)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 09/09/2026
  Reading date: pending
  Reading time: pending
  Reading place: pending
  Thesis director: REDONDO DOMINGUEZ, ERNEST
  Thesis abstract: PURPOSEFUL ARCHITECTURE FOR THE SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FACILITIESThis research analyses, formulates and reasonably contrasts a comprehensivea model of sustainable management of public facilities throughout their life cycle, from planning and design to operation and dismantling, and incorporates data-driven governance aimed at facilitating collaborative decision-making between the different agents involved. It is based on the hypothesis that the adoption of a comprehensive sustainable management model, based on collaborative digital methodologies —especially Building Information Modeling (BIM)—, sustainability criteria and life cycle analysis (LCA), makes it possible to overcome the limitations of traditional models of management of public facilities, characterized by the fragmentation of processes, the lack of traceability of information and the low optimization of the use phase. The work adopts a mixed methodological approach that combines systematic review of the literature, comparative analysis between management models, interviews with experts from the public and private sectors, quantitative validation and the development of an original methodological instrument: a methodological framework of 100 sustainable technical criteria applicable to the entire life cycle, which operationalizes the proposed management model. Unlike predominantly theoretical approaches, the research is carried out in a real context of public management of educational facilities and incorporates recent data and professional experiences (2024–2025), especially in relation to the implementation of BIM in the operation phase.The research also develops a practical case, a hypothetical Audiovisual Vocational Training Institute of Catalonia in the Tres Xemeneies del Besòs site, which acts as a proof of concept of the proposed comprehensive management model. This case makes it possible to contrast the coherence and feasibility of the model, as well as its architectural translation in relation to the pedagogical requirements of vocational education.The results positively show the three hypotheses formulated. Firstly, the comprehensive management model based on BIM–LCA improves the efficiency, quality and sustainability of processes. Secondly, its application determines a new flexible, modular architectural typology aimed at efficient maintenance. Thirdly, the integral model is adapted in a coherent way to the functional and pedagogical requirements of Vocational Training, reinforcing the connection between architecture, management, educational innovation and participatory governance processes. Of particular relevance is the contribution in the field of digital operation management, still underdeveloped in current institutional practice,Finally, the research proposes future lines aimed at data-driven exploitation, the integration of intelligent systems and the development of new professional profiles linked to life cycle management.
  

• TANOK, MERVE TUBA: Feminist political ecology of the right to the city: production of space in Istanbul (2000–2020)
  
  Author: TANOK, MERVE TUBA
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN THEORY AND HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
  Department: Department of History and Theory of Architecture and Communication Techniques (THATC)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 09/09/2026
  Reading date: pending
  Reading time: pending
  Reading place: pending
  Thesis director: MUXI MARTINEZ, ZAIDA | HERNÁNDEZ FALAGÁN, DAVID
  Thesis abstract: Abstract This thesis examines the production of urban space in Istanbul between 2000 and 2020 through the perspective of feminist political ecology and the right to the city. The study argues that urban transformation processes in Istanbul during the examined period have been shaped by neoliberal and neoconservative urban policies together with patriarchal and hegemonic masculine relations of power. Accordingly, urban space is approached not as a neutral physical environment, but as a gendered socio spatial structure that reproduces inequality, exclusion and ecological destruction. The theoretical framework of the study is grounded on feminism, feminist political ecology and the concept of the right to the city. In this regard, the thesis analyses the relation between gender, power, ecology and urbanisation by focusing on how spatial organisation reflects and materialises ideological structures. The study also discusses the production of phallic space and examines how urban transformation processes normalise gendered hierarchies through architecture, planning policies and everyday life practices. Methodologically, the research is designed as a qualitative study based mainly on critical literature review and interpretative urban analysis. Various qualitative materials including academic literature, institutional reports, statistics, newspapers, visual materials, photographs and interviews are analysed in order to investigate the socio spatial dynamics of Istanbul’s urban transformation. Within this framework, the thesis particularly focuses on large scale urban projects and neoconservative housing developments as representative cases of the production of gendered urban space. The findings of the study demonstrate that the production of urban space in Istanbul has increasingly operated through commodification, socio spatial segregation, ecological destruction and patriarchal spatial organisation. Mega projects, gated communities and neoliberal urban policies have contributed to the transformation of the city into a fragmented and unequal urban structure. Simultaneously, these processes have reshaped everyday life, mobility, public space and relations with nature according to dominant ideological and economic priorities. Finally, the thesis discusses future perspectives regarding the reclaiming of the city through ecological awareness, equality, collective participation and emancipatory urban praxis. In this sense, the study argues for the necessity of alternative forms of urban production that prioritise care, democratic participation, ecological sustainability and socio spatial justice. Keywords: feminist political ecology, right to the city, production of space, Istanbul, gender, urban transformation, neoliberal urbanism, spatial justice