PhD SUCCESS (Dec 2004)

On 3rd December Nicholas Howden successfully defended his PhD thesis on "Hydrogeological controls on surface/ groundwater interactions in a lowland permeable Chalk catchment: implications for water chemistry and numerical modelling". Nicholas was supervised by Professor Howard Wheater. We would like to wish him many congratulations.

CONFERENCE (Nov 2004)

Dr Stephen Smith will give an invited paper to The Pre-conference Workshop: Biowastes and Biosolids within the EU Soil Thematic Strategy at The 9th European Biosolids and Biowastes Conference, 14 – 17 November 2005, Wakefield. Dr Smith’s paper, which is coauthored by Professor Brian Chambers of ADAS, is entitled: Contaminants and nutrients, etc. from biowastes and biosolids – weighing the balance. Papers from The Environment Agency, DEFRA, RIVM (The Netherlands) and The University of Reading will also be presented at the Workshop.

ICE BAKER MEDAL (Nov 2004)

Dr Neil McIntyre, Dr Christian Onof and Brian Connorton (Thames Water) were awarded the Baker Medal by the President of the Instituion of Civil Engineers, Douglas Oaverkee on the 2nd November. This award was for the paper "Evaluation and visualisation of risk to water resources" published in Water and Maritime Engineering in March 2003. Other co-authors were Professor Howard Wheater and Matthew Lees. Congratulations to all the authors.

WELCOME (Oct 2004)

Mr Xingwei ZHU. Mr Zhu is a graduate from Hohai University, China, with a first class degree in Environmental Engineering. Following this he has just completed the MSc Degree in Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London, and has received an ORS scholarship for his PhD studies. His PhD project will be in the field of water treatment technology under the supervision of Professor Nigel Graham.

WELCOME (Oct 2004)

Welcome to all the new EWRE students. We have a truly international group this year with students from Australia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Cyprus, France, Greece, Indonesia, Jamaica, Nigeria, Palestine, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, UK and USA. We have 62 students split into the following clusters:
26 for Environmental Engineering; 10 for Environmental Engineering & Business Management; 7 for Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Development; 17 for Hydrology for Environmental Management and 2 for Hydrology & Sustainable Development
Good luck to you all for the forthcoming year.

WORKSHOP (Sept 2004)

Professor Cedo Maksimovic attended ETNET 21 (EU project on Water Education) Workshop in Riga (Latvia) between 2-3 September in the capacity of the Chairman of IAHR - European Regional Division.
Arrangements have been made for taking over (transfer) of the Latest News and KeyWater web based newsletters to IAHR server. IAHR will continue to update the above two newsletters with the modifications that will enable slight modifications of the content as to be of use to the IAHR members form Europe as well as to the previous subscribers through ETNET list.

CONFERENCE (Sept 2004)

Professor Nigel Graham recently attended the CIWEM 2nd National Conference in Wakefield, Yorkshire (13-15 September). He was co-author of a paper presented at the conference entitled, “Modifying Adsorption Characteristics of Field-Spent GAC using Pre-Regeneration Acid Treatment”. The paper was based on a PhD project, co-supervised by Nigel Graham, which was carried out by Lynsey Perry at the University of Wolverhampton. Collaboration on this project, and on GAC issues in general, is continuing with Lynsey and her supervisor Dr Kally Kaur at the University of Wolverhampton.

WELCOME (Aug 2004)

Welcome to Dr Miles Ramsvik Marshall a new Research Assistant who will be working with Professor Howard Wheater, based at Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, CEH, Bangor, North Wales. He will be working on the Flood Risk Management Research Consortium , FRMRC, project based on the Pontbren project. The aim of the FRMRC work at Pontbren will be:

• Quantify local scale impacts of upland land management, including grazing, woodland and riparian buffer strips on soil structure, flood runoff generation and geomorphology
• Develop multi-scale data to support analysis of the scale-dependence of model parameters
• Support extension of the analysis of impacts to the Upper Severn catchment
• Support analysis of land management policy recommendations for flood mitigation.

Dr Marshall was previously based at the University of Reading, in the Department of Soil Science where he did his PhD titled: 'Spatial variability and pesticide leaching: measurement and modelling the hydrodynamic aspect of pesticide leaching through soils'.

WELCOME (Aug 2004)

Welcome to Shuming Liu who joins the section as a postdoctoral research fellow. Shuming has a first degree in Civil Engineering, a PhD in Environmental Science and most recently worked at the University of Sheffield in the development of GIS-based environmental management applications. He will be working in the Urban Water Research Group on the WaND project under the supervision of Professor David Butler.

BHS2004. HYDROLOGY: SCIENCE AND PRACTICE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (July 2004)

The British Hydrological Society International Conference will be held at Imperial from the 12th - 16th July 2004. The Conference will provide a forum for the discussion of advances relating to the hydrological cycle, the progress of hydrology as an interdisciplinary science, and the challenge of meeting the targets set in Johannesburg for provision of safe water and poverty alleviation. Approximately 250 posters or papers will be presented, and a number of distinguished hydrologists and leading figures in environmental science and management will be attending. Howard Wheater and Adrian Butler are charing the Main Organising Committee and Local Organising Committee respectively, with Neil McIntyre, Christian Onof, David Butler, Cedo Maksimovic(among others) convening conference sessions.

INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGI NEERS BAKER MEDAL (July 2004)

Neil McIntyre, Howard Wheat er, Christian Onof and Matthew Lees have been awarded the ICE Baker Medal for their paper "Evaluation and visualisation of risk to water resources". This paper was written in collaboration with Brian Connorton of Thames Water, and was published in Water and Maritime Engineering in March 2003. Congratulations to all the authors.

IWA LEA DING-EDGE CONFERENCE (June 2004)

Professor Nigel Graham was a Key-note spe aker (‘Slow sand filtration: Actual research and perspectives of application’) at the 2nd IWA (International Water Association) Leading-Edge Conference on Water and Wastewater Technologies, Prague, Czech Republic, 1-4 June 2004. He also took part in a pre-conference workshop on ‘Innovative ferrate(VI) technology in water and wastewater treatment’ which was held at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague.

iNDUSTRIAL ADVISORY PANEL (May 2004)

A panel of senior practitioners from industry has been set up to advise long-term course development to academic staff on the EWRE Masters programme. This will help to ensure the continued relevance of the MSc to industry, and maximise our students future employment prospects. In particular the Advisory Panel will:

• Define the future skills needs of industry and advise on how the MSc might best achieve these
• Identify the skills and expertise the MSc needs to provide for our students, and how these might most effectively be delivered
• Review course content and recommend appropriate changes
• Foster links between academic staff and key industry sectors.

The first meeting was held on the 10th May.

STUDENTSHIPS (April 2004)

Chris Cheeseman has received two EPSRC industrial case awards from the Mini-waste Faraday Partnership.Click 1 and 2  for details.

UK FLOODING THREAT TO BE TACKLED BY EXPERT CONSORTIUM
(April 2004)

An initiative to combat the growing threat of flooding in the UK will be launched in London on Wednesday 7 April. The Flood Risk Management Research Consortium (FRMRC) will carry out multi-disciplinary research to predict and manage the risk of flooding. Click here for more details.

PhD SUCCESS (April 2004)

On the 28th April Martin Currie was successful in his PhD viva examination. His PhD project, entitled ‘Enhancement of Particle Removal in Water Treatment by Pre-Ozonation’, was supervised by Professor Nigel Graham and Dr Steve Lambert, and undertaken jointly with the WRc Plc under the DTi/EPSRC Postgraduate Training Partnership scheme. Martin is soon to take up employment with Thames Water Utilities Plc in Reading. We offer our congratulations to Martin and wish him well in his new position.

WELCOME (March 2004)

Welcome to Vanessa Adell who is a new PhD student supervised by Chris Cheeseman and Aldo Boccacini (Materials Science Department). Vanessa graduated in Chemistry Science at the Univeristy Jaume I (Spain), in 2001. After her degree she worked in research for Borax Europe Ltd, over two years, in Business Development, in the Glass & Ceramic Team. She will be working on a project entitled “Production of lightweight aggregates from problematic industrial waste ashes using the Lytag process”.

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING STUDY TOUR (March 2004)

This year's Environmental Engineering MSc study tour will take place from Monday 22nd to Friday 26th of March. The tour will be centred in the West Midlands and will include visits to solids waste management facilites, water and wastewater treatment facilities and other environmental-related works.

WATERSAVE (Feb 2004)

The next meeting of the WATERSAVE network (www.watersave.uk.net) , run by the section, will take place at The Nottingham Trent University on 10th February.

WELCOME (Feb 2004)

Welcome to Miss Aisha Mufti Al-Qurashi who is a new PhD student supervised by Professor Howard Wheater.
Aisha Joins us from the the Ministry of Regional Municipality, Environment of Water Resources, Sultanate of Oman, where she was working as a Director in the Water Resources Assessment Department. She will be working on a project - Research on Rainfall-Runoff Modelling that can be used in Arid Zone Conditions. I am sure we all wish her a warm welcome.

WATERSAVE (Feb 2004)

The next meeting of the WATERSAVE network (www.watersave.uk.net) , run by the section, will take place at The Nottingham Trent University on 10th February.

 

FAREWELL (Dec 2004)

Congratulations to Dr Nicola Lang who has left the EWRE Section to join the Health Protection Agency (HPA). The HPA have offered Nicola a senior post as Laboratory Manager to run their microbiological compliance testing programmes. Nicola received her PhD in October 2004 and her project investigated the survival of enteric microorganisms in sewage sludge treated agricultural soil, under the supervision of Dr Stephen Smith. The work was funded under the EPSRC-WITE programme and by several major UK Water Utilities and The Environment Agency. The quality of Nicola’s thesis and her contribution to the area was recognized with the award of the Unwin Postgraduate Prize for 2004 by the Department. As a result of this work, a new project has been awarded to Dr Smith, funded by the Water Industry and DEFRA, to examine the fundamental mechanisms controlling the inactivation or survival of enteric microorganisms in soil amended with biosolids and biowaste materials. Nicola is maintaining contact with Dr Smith’s research group to complete a series of journal papers on the pathogen survival studies. We wish her well for the future.

UNWIN PRIZE (Nov 2004)

Congratulations to Nicola Lang for receiving this years Unwin Postgraduate Prize for her thesis entitled "The Fate of Enteric Microorganisms During the Treatment and Agricultural Use of Biosolids". Nicola's thesis was supervised by Dr Stephen Smith.

INDIA DEBATE (Nov 2004)

Professor David Butler was recently invited by the Association of British Scholars to be a judge for the All India Debate on Rainwater Harvesting in Jamshedpur. The debate itself, sponsored by Tata Steel, was witnessed by an audience of over 1000 people, the State governor and other local dignatories, and was widely reported in the local medias.

PRIZE WINNING POSTER (Nov 2004)

The annual conference of the Mini-Waste Faraday Partnership: Recognising waste as a resource, was held on the 9th and 10th of November 2004, at the Central Science Laboratory, York. The prize for the best poster prepared by a Mini-Waste Faraday Associate was awarded to Vanessa Adell for her work on "Production of lightweight aggregates from problematic Industrial waste ashes using the Lytag process ".

WELCOME (Oct 2004)

Mr Gang FANG. Mr Fang is a graduate from Nanjing University of Technology, China, in the field of p olymer chemical material s. Following this he worked for 3 years in the Nanjing Automotive Research Institute of Yue Jin Motor Group, on the development of new materials, and for another 3 ye ars with 3M China Limited as a Senior Process Engineer, where he received the 3M Chairman’s Leadership Award in 2000. Subsequently, he came to the UK, to the University of Birmingham, where he completed an M.Sc degree (with Merit) in Biochemical Engineering. Mr Fang has received an ORS scholarship and will be undertaking his PhD studies in the field of water and wastewater treatment under the supervision of Professor Nigel Graham.

CONFERENCE (Oct 2004)

Professor David Butler chaired a conference held in London this month entitled 'Planning for Water. A major challenge for the govenment's new sustaianble communites.' Presentations were also given by David Balmforth (visiting professor) and Chris Shirley-Smith (researcher).

LECTURING (Sept 2004)

Professor Cedo Maksimovic delivered four lectures at the International Course: Environmental Risk Management organised at the Tampere Technical University (Finland) as a part of EU TRITON project on 9th and 10th Septem ber.
The titles
A. Integrated Urban Water Management and related risk
B.Diffuse and Point Source Pollution in Urban Areas
C. Interactions of Urban Water Infrastructure with Urban Ground Water
D. Managing risk of Urban Floods

LIFE PROJECT WORKSHOPS (Sept 2004)

There will be two Workshops held at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering for the participants from IC and Bosnia and Herzegovina in EU LIFE Third countries projects:
A. LIFE - INFRARED (Institutional Framework for Regional Environmental Development) on Monday 27th September - |Room 601 and
B. LIFE - LICENSE (Local Institutional Capacity Development in Environmental Sensitive Areas)

CONFERENCE (Sept 2004)

Professor David Butler was a member of the Scientific Committee and presented a paper at the International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling (15-17 September 2004), held in Dresden Germany.

FAR EAST (Aug 2004)

Professor Nigel Graham made a 2 week visit to the Far East during the period, 18 July to the 3 August, spending time in both Hong Kong and Malaysia. In Hong Kong he held discussions on collaborative research projects at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he is an Honorary Professor, and he gave a research seminar at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He also reviewed progress on the undergraduate ‘Year Abroad’ programme between the Civil Engineering Departments of Imperial College and The HK Polytechnic University, which he coordinates. Subsequently Professor Graham spent 4 days at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur carrying out his duties as External Examiner for the Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental) degree course which is run by the Department of Civil Engineering. The Head of Department, Associate Professor Md. Ghazaly Shaaban, is a former alumni of Imperial College, and the EWRE Section in particular, having taken the Environmental Engineering M.Sc course several years ago. 

SCIENCE ADVISORY PANEL (Aug 2004)

With effect from this month Howard Wheater was appointed to the Science Advisory Panel of the Environment Agency of England and Wales. 

STAFF PROMOTIONS (July 2004)

Congratulations to Dr Chris Cheeseman on his promotion to Reader in Waste Management. 

YOUNG AUTHORS COMPETITION (July 2004)

The CIWEM Central Southern Branch held its annual “Young Authors” competition on 29th April 2004 and Ms Hoi San Pang, a former Environmental Engineering MSc student (2003), won the competition and was awarded the Jack Preston Trophy and a cheque for £300.
Hoi San’s presentation, “Assessment of Granular Activated Carbon Attrition During Filter Backwashing and the Subsequent Impact on Filter Performance in Drinking Water Treatment”, was based on work she did at Imperial College in collaboration with University College London as part of her final year project under the supervision of Professor Nigel Graham and Dr Caroline Fitzpatrick of the Dept of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UCL.

JW STARKEY SILVER MEDAL(June 2004)

The Royal Society for the Promotion of Health has awarded Professor David Wilson the prestigious JW Starkey Silver Medal.The award is made annually in recognition of 'outstanding work in the promotion of health', and has been awarded to Professor Wilson this year for his work as author of the 'Significant and Important' Training Resource Pack on Hazardous Wastes for Developing Economies. This contained work completed by MSc students Joyce Tsoi and Carolina Sanchez Vargas (2000-01).
RSPH  is one of the leading international professional bodies working in the inter disiplinary field of public health (founded in 1876 by inter alia Edwin Chadwick and Florence Nightingale, and granted their Royal Charter in 1904.

WELCOME (May 2004)

Welcome to Mr Chris Shirley-Smith who has joined the section, working for his PhD on a WaND DTA, under the supervision of Professor David Butler. Chris is an old boy of the College, having completed the Environmental Technology MSc course in the '90s. He is well known in the field of water supply, conservation and recycling and will be focussing on aspects of urban water management applied to specific case-study examples.

CONFERENCE(May 2004)

On May 13th Prof David Butler will be speaking at the Water UK New and Emerging Technologies Conference in London on 'Urban Water Management - the Development of Technical Solutions'.

URBAN WATER RESEARCH GROUP(April 2004)

The Urban Water Research Group has been awarded a continuation for another 4 years of its EPSRC Platform Grant. For this new PG, the Group aims to continue to play a major international role in research definition, implementation and dissemination. An important part of this will be to continue to strongly contribute at national and international fora dedicated to research agenda setting. A number of timely research themes have been identified, which will form the backbone of the groups work over the next four years. These include urban water aspects related to: sustainable water management, urban flooding, integrated catchment management, asset management, nutrients & pathogens, innovation & performance measurement. The knowledge derived from our work and that of other relevant work will be disseminated nationally and internationally via our Urban Water journal, various books including a book series on urban water managemnt, web-sites, email discussion lists, seminars, conferences plus tranditonal peer-reviewed journal papers. The multi-disciplinary nature of the area will be expanded and enhanced by including in our team researchers with experience in the biological sciences and social/economic sciences, collaboration with other worldclass researchers in our department and by collaboration externally in multi-disciplinary teams.

LECTURES IN SPAIN (March 2004)

During the week, 22-26 March, Professor Nigel Graham gave a lecture course in Spain to PhD students studying in the field of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, and the Universidad De Castilla - La Mancha in Cuidad Real. The lecture course, covering topics related to research methods and tre atment technologies, was arranged thr ough a former PhD student and Researc h Assistant, Dr Guillermo San M iguel, who hold a special staff appointment in the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. It is hoped that this visit and ongoing discussions will lead to collaborative research links in the future.

HYDROLOGY STUDY TOUR (March 2004)

The 2004 Hydrology MSc study tour (22-26 March) will include visits to the Environment Agency (Chichester) and associated flood protection schemes, to the Frome/Piddle catchments in Dorset (Chalk hydrogeology and stream aquifer interactions), to the British Geological Survey and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, for an introduction to the Lowland Catchment Research project, soil water and groundwater field work on the Pang/Lambourn catchments, near Reading, and visits to a landfill site and to the Windsor and Maidenhead Flood Relief Scheme.

WELCOME (Feb 2004)

Welcome to Dr Gyan Shrivastava of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago. Dr Shrivastava is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and will be here until the end of July working on areas of mutual research interest “Hydrology of tropical rainforest (Estimation of instream flow)” with Professor Howard Wheater. I am sure we all wish him a warm welcome.

WELCOME (Feb 2004)

Welcome to Mr Bo Ning who is another new PhD student supervised by Professor Nigel Graham. Bo joins us from East China University of Science and Technology where he obtained his first degree in E nvironmental Engineering. His research project is the Removal of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals from water by Ozone and Ultrasound.

FAREWELL (Jan 2004)

Ivan Stoianov finished his PhD studies at the College in December and in January he joined the research staff of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work there concerns the development of wireless sensor networks, and it is hoped that this may include a future project between MIT and Professor Nigel Graham and Professor Cedo Maksimovic on the application of wireless networks to water supply systems. We wish him a very successful and enjoyable time at MIT.