PHD SUCCESS (Dec 2003)

Joanna Fitch successfully defended her PhD thesis on "Characterisation of environmentally exposed solidified industrial waste". We would like to wish her many congratulations.

PROFESSOR TED BRUCE (Nov 2003)

Professor Ted Bruce, who retired from the academic staff of the Department in 1977, sadly passed away in September.

Professor Bruce was Head of the Public Health Engineering section in the Department during the period, 1950 to 1977, and was the founder of the MSc course in Environmental Engineering (formerly Public Health Engineering) During his career he was President of the Institution of Public Health Engineers, which subsequently merged with two other institutions to become the present CIWEM (Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.

SUPPORT FORUM (Nov 2003)

Professor David Butler will be speaking at the twenty-third meeting of the Foundation for Water Research Wastewater Research & Industry Support Forum on 28th November on @Water Cycle Management for New Developments'.

EURESCO CONFERENCE (Oct 2003)

Professor Nigel Graham has been invited to speak (‘The use of coagulant chemicals in drinking water production’) at the EURESCO (European Science Foundation) Conference on Natural Waters and Water Technology, Acquafredda di Maratea (near Naples), Italy, 4-9 October 2003).

PHD SUCCESSES (Oct 2003)

Neil McIntyre and Momodou Njie successfully defended their PhD theses recently on "Analysis of Uncertainty in River Water Quality Modelling" and "Modelling Soil Water Dynamics in Vegetated Soils" respectively. We would like to wish them both many congratulations.

INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR (Oct 03)

Dr Stephen Smith was an Invited speaker on Environmental Policy: Waste Disposal Management at a European Institute for Cyprus Seminar: Harmonisation with Europe Environmental Policy, A Challenge for Cyprus; 30 October 2003, Nicosia, Cyprus.

Nomination to the Chairman of the European Division of IAHR (International Association for Hydraulic Research and Engineering. (Sept 2003)

European Division of IAHR
On the occasion of the XXX IAHR Congress recently held in Thesalloniki, the European Division of IAHR gained in momentum. A meeting of the delegates from European countries was held in which the previous chairman (J. J. Peters) and Vice-chairman
(J. Cunge) proposed several concrete actions aiming at activation of the Division and providing better services to the IAHR members from Europe. It has been re-iterated that the Division will NOT organise separate regional events such as European IAHR Congress. The new Committee of the Division has also been approved along with:

- Chairman: Prof. Cedo Maksimovic, Imperial College London, UK and
- Vice chairman: Dr Didier Bousmar, CUL, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique, bousmar@gce.ucl.ac.be
to lead the Division till the next IAHR Congress, Soul, Korea, 2005.

The new Chairman and Vice-Chairman will come up with a proposal on the action plan and the IAHR members from Europe will be consulted on the priorities which may include the following:

- strengthening the links with national IAHR and related water associations

- organising the European Newsletter (together with IAHR Secretariat in Madrid) for fast dissemination of news, research results, current issues and other items initiated by the IAHR members for Europe

- fostering links with EU (EC) for searching the means of interactions on research and professional issues and supporting the initiatives for improvement of co-operation with CEE (Central and East Europe).

- Supporting the initiatives which would strengthen the innovative research agenda.

UNWIN PRIZE (Aug 2003)

The Unwin Prize is an annual departmental prize awarded to the best postgraduate student at the conclusion of his/her course. This year it has been given to Didia Covas for her PhD thesis work entitled "Inverse transient analysis for leak detection and calibration of water pipe systems modelling special dynamic effects. Congratulations to Didia on her success.
This is the 3rd consecutive year that the Unwin Prize has been awarded to a student in the EWRE section as last year Thorsten Wagener was the recipient and the year before that it was awarded to Matthijs van Leeuwen , further proof of the high calibre of student and supervision we have in our section.

WELCOME (July 2003)

Ms Heba Ramadan is visiting Dr Stephen Smith for a period of six weeks to receive training in methods of chemical and environmental analysis in the Roger Perry Laboratory. Ms Ramadan is an MSc student from the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, Alexandria University, where she works under the supervision of Professor Salah Hassouna. Her MSc research project is investigating the phytoremediation of heavy metals in soil. Professor Hassouna is also visiting the Department at the same time and is researching sustainable and appropriate technologies in wastewater and solid waste treatment that are applicable to Egypt, with the assistance of Dr Smith. This activity is supported by a British Council Link Project, coordinated by Dr Smith and Professor Hassouna.

BABY BOYS! (July 2003)

Congratulations to Adrian and Ruth Butler on the birth of their twin boys Matthew and Jonathan. The boys arrived on Saturday 19/7/03 weighing in at 2.164 kg and 2.232 kg respectively. Click here  to see pictures of the "little Angels".

INAUGURAL LECTURE(June 2003)

David Butler's professorial inaugural lecture was held on June 3rd. His talk was entitled 'Urban Water Management - Pipedreams or Impending Nightmare?'. The evening was chaired by Professor David Nethercot FREng, Head of Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the Vote of Thanks was given by the distinguished academic Professor Poul Harremoes from the Technical University of Denmark.

COMPOSTING ASSOCIATION (May 2003)

Dr Stephen Smith is speak ing at a meeting organised by The Composti ng Association on Small-Scale Composting at Warwick University on 1 May. The aim of the conference is to promote the benefits of home and community level organics management and the subje ct of his paper is 'Composting of biodegradable household waste: Processing, diversion and end-use of compost'. 

FAREWELL (May 2003)

Farewell to Alex Zarcharof who left us recently for pastures new. Alex originally joined us in 1996 as an MSc student, then after successfully obtaining his PhD degree in 2001 became a Research Assistant working closely w ith P rofessor David Butler. Alex is now working for the Organising Commitee for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games as Co-ordinator of cleaning and Waste Management Services. We wish him well in his future endeavours.

WELCOME (April 2003)

Welcome to Barbara Orellana, who is visiting the section for a few months from the Catholic University of Chile, Santiago. Barabara has had a range of hy drological research and consultancy experience in Chile and has most recently been working on the application of cellular automata to mo del snowmelt. She will be using her GIS expertise to support Beth Jackson in developing GIS-based modelling tools for nutrients in groundwater-dominated catchments, as part of the LOCAR (Lowland Catchment Research) initiative.

NICE CONFERENCE (April 2003)

The section had a strong presence at the European Geophysical Society-Americal Geophysical Union joint meeting in Nice in April. Adrian Butler, Neil McIntyre, Christian Onof and Howard Wheater attended, presenting 8 papers and posters. 11,000 delegates attended, making it probably the world’s largest geophysical meeting. Howard then travelled to Paris, to chair the inaugural workshop of a new UNESCO-sponsored global initiative in arid zone hydrology (G-WADI).

FRAMEWORK 6 (March 2003)

Professor Maksimovic has led the initiative in a new project that has been submitted to the EU for the Integrated Project (IP) within the Framework 6 (FP6). The project title is NGT - New Generation of Tools for Integrated Urban Water Management and the overall objective of the proposed research is to build capacity for assessment, planning, and management in the urban water and urban environment domain. Goals are to:

• to integrate and apply the relevant multi-disciplinary expertise (top level scientists and professionals);
• to provide decision-support tools capable of encompassing the complex technical, environmental and socio-economic interactions;
• to deliver tools which are, not only scientifically justified and transparent, but accessible to the chain of intermediate decision makers and beneficiaries, in order to permit and promote effective application.
• to enable consistent management (prevention and mitigation) of natural and anthropogenic sources of risk to the status of the urban water cycle;
• to set the stage for innovative approaches to meeting the challenges of climate change, reduced water availability (combating water crisis), ecosystem protection and enhancement, in the context of EU environmental strategy and principles of sustainable development.

BBC WORLD SERVICE (March 2003)

The BBC World Service is recording 4 programmes on Watering the City. Professor David Butler has been an adviser to the series and will be in the studio this month contributing to the programme's delivery. The programme will be aired in April.

PHD SUCCESS (Jan 2003)

Elena Alcantara Ortega successfully defended her PhD thesis on 'Alkali-activated clinoptilolite, properties and use in solidification/stabilisation systems'. We would like to wish her many congratulations. 

WELCOME (Jan 2003)

The section is very pleased to announce the arrival of Andrew Saterlay who is the new Environmental Engineering Laboratory Technician. Andrew replaces John Sisons and I know that we all wish him a warm welcome.

KEYNOTE LECTURE (Jan 2003)

Professor Howard Wheater visited La Serena, Chile in January to give a keynote lecture at the opening of a new UNESCO centre (CAZALAC) for Water Resources in the Arid zones of Latin America and the Caribbean.

EPSRC -WITE (Nov 2003)

Dr Stephen Smith, and members of his research group on the EPSRC-WITE project Predicting Agricultural Benefit of Novel Biosolids Products presented an afternoon workshop on Recycling - Nutrient Management Issues at the 8th European Biosolids and Organic Residuals Conference, 25 November 2003, Wakefield.

POLMET 2003 (Nov 2003)

Professor Nigel Graham and Dr Chris Cheeseman attended the POLMET 2003 International Conference on ‘Pollution in the Metropolitan and Urban Environment’ in Hong Kong during the 3-5 November. This conference is held every 3 years and the venue alternates between Hong Kong and other Asian cities. Professor Graham was a member of the conference Technical Committee, chairman of a technical session, and presented a paper entitled, “The Treatment of High Ammonia Wastewaters by the Membrane Bioreactor Process”. Dr Chessman presented a paper entitled, “Lightweight Aggregate Production from Sintered Sewage Sludge Ash”. During the conference week Professor Graham and Dr Cheeseman also visited the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for discussions on current and future collaborative research projects.

FELLOWSHIP SUCCESS (Oct 2003)

We would like to wish many congratulations to Professor Nigel Graham on his election as a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE (Oct 03)

Professor David Butler is chairing the next Hydro International Conference on 'AMP 4 and beyond' to be held on 8th October in Cardiff.

EPSRC (Oct 03)

The EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environment Programme will be launched in London on 15th October. As the Director of one of the sucessful consortia (WaND: Water cyccle management for new developments), Professor David Butler will be giving a keynote presentation.

CCWI/WATERSAVE CONFERENCE(Sept 2003)

Professor David Butler & Professor Cedo Maksimovic have recently organised the very successful CCWI/WATERSAVE conference on Advances in Water Supply Management at Imperial College 15-17 September 2003.

PHD SUCCESS (Sept 2003)

Sophia Bethanis successfully defended her PhD thesis on "Production of lightweight aggregates from Energy from Waste combustion ashes". We would like to wish her many congratulations.

EXPERT EVALUATION (Aug 2003)

Professor David Butler has recently completed an expert evaluation of the urban flooding aspects of the UK government's Foresight review of flooding and coastal defence.

Launch of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for water Education – Links with EWRE (Aug 03)

Prof. Maksimovic took part in the UNESCO-IHE meeting on the occasion of the launch of the UNESC-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, the Netherlands. He played an active role in formulation of the future action plans of UNESCO endorsed international water education in which there is also a role of Imperial College like: exchange of lecturers for the p o stgraduate training programmes, particip ation in water education training tools developments and sharing the EU resources of Marie Curie action plans within Framework programme 6 (FP6).

PHD SUCCESS ( Aug 2003)

Russell Smith successfully defended his PhD thesis on 'Multiple objective calibration of a simple phosphorous transfer model'. We would like to wish him many congratulations.

THE ROGER PERRY LABORATORY(Aug 2003)

The Roger Perry Laboratory in the EWRE Section is now able to offer routine elemental analysis of liquid samples for upto 26 elements using Simultaneous ICP-AES, or individual elements by AAS/GFAS. This competitively priced service is available with a typical sample turn-around of 5 working days. For further details on elements analysed, solution requirements and costs per solution, please contact Dr Geoff Fowler, Laboratory Manager, tel. 020 7594 5973, email: g.fowler@imperial.ac.uk. 

International Conference: Advance in Water Supply Management (A ug 03)

The final preparations for the event are taking place. The programme is on the web: http://www.watersave.uk.net/events/Conf/index.html 

BABY GIRL! (July 2003)

Congratu lations to Mohamed Elshamy and his wife on the birth of their daughter Bushra which means "Glad Tidings". She arrived on Thursday 3/7/03 weighing in at 3.050kg.

FELLOWSHIP SUCCESS (July 2003)

At its last Annual General Meeting the Royal Academy of Engineering elected to its Fellowship Professor Howard Wheater. This is a substantial and well deserved recognition that Howard has made significant contributions to the furtherance of engineeri ng. Since the Academy only elects 50 new Fellows each year, Howard’s success provides further confirmation of the high quality of our activities.

SEMINAR (July 2003)

Natural Disaster Hazard and Vulnerability Atlas (Database-driven, Web-enabled). Dusan Sakulski of the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) Pretoria 0001, Republic of South Africa, will give a seminar in Room 141, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at 11 am on Thursday 10 July 2003. All welcome. Click here for seminar abstract.

PROMOTION (July 2003)

Congrations to Professor Cedo Maksimovic on this recent and well deserved promotion to Professorial Research Fellow Grade 4.

CONFERENCE (June 2003)

Professor David Butler chaired the Foresight Initiative's Sustainable Water Management Conference in Manchester on 25th June. Over 80 delegates from across the water sector took part in the launch of the report entitled 'Sustainable Water Management: A future view', broadly endorsing its contents and debating the next stage of the process.

WATER-MONET NETWORK (May 2003)

Dr Stephen Smith is also an invited speaker at a one day conference organised by the Water-Monet Network on Measurements for Biosolids Compliance. The Water Monitoring Network is an EPSRC sponsored Engineering Programme Network that aims to establish a non-competitive discussion platform to promote multidisciplinary research in the areas of sample preparation, measurement techniques and process control in water and wastewater treatment. The meeting is on 21 May at Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, and Dr Smith's paper will consider monitoring and control of pathogens for landspreading operations. 

SEMINAR (May 2003)

Transport And Retention In Fractured Rocks
Professor Vladimir Cvetkovic of the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, will give a seminar in Room 141, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1-2 pm today, Thursday 29 May. All Welcome.

PHD SUCCESS (April 2003)

Christos Makropoulos successfully defended his PhD thesis on 'Spatial decision support for urban water management'. We would like to wish him many congratulations and look forward to his continuing involvement with the section over the next few years.

BHS CONFERENCE 2004 (April 2003)

EWRE is hosting the 2004 British Hydrological Society International Conference "Hydrology: Science and Practice for the 21st Century". This will take place from 12-16 July 2004 in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building at the South Kensington Campus. The Conference will bring together hydrologists concerned with the challenge of understanding and managing hydrological systems during the new century, including the role of hydrological science and management in poverty alleviation. More details from:
www.hydrology.org.uk/bhs2004/welcome.htm 

EE MSc FIELD TRIP (March 2003)

The Environmental Engineering MSc Field trip took place from 17th to 21st March (inc.)in the Birmingham and Oxfordshire region. The tour encompassed visits to wastewater treatments plants, a flood control centre, sewage treatment works, waste/sludge incinerators, landfill treamentment facilities, a flow gauging station and a sustainable urban drainage system facility. The tour was organised this year by Professor Nigel Graham, was a great success and thoroughly enjoyed by all students.

WORLD WATER FORUM (March 2003)

Professor Howard Wheater and Professor Cedo Maksimovic attended the World Water Forum in Kyoto last week at the invitation of the Japanese government. They presented UNESCO’s International Hydrology programme in the areas of Urban Water and Arid Zone Water Resources, respectively.

HEM MSc FIELD TRIP (March 2003)

The Hydrology for Environmental Management fieldtrip was this year organised by Dr Adrian Butler took place from the 17th to 21st March (inc.) in the Reading area. The tour included visits to the Windsor and Maidenhead flood relief scheme, a waste management site, the Lee Valley storage and disribution scheme, and various hydrological field installations at different sites. This was another successful study tour enjoyed by staff and students.

PHD SUCCESS (March 2003)

Didia Isabel Cammeira Covas successfully defended her PhD thesis on 'Inverse Transient Analysis for Leak Detection and Calibration of Water Pipe Systems: Modelling Special Dynamic Effects'. We would like to wish her many congratulations.  

EPSRC(Feb 2003)

EPSRC has selected 6 academics, including Professor Howard Wheater to prepare a consortium bid for a new £5million research initiative in Flooding.

PHD SUCCESS (Feb 2003)

Sharon Jasim successfully defended her PhD thesis on 'Home composting for the management of biodegradable domestic solid waste'. We would like to wish her many congratulations.

AUDACIOUS: ADAPTABLE URBAN DRAINAGE - ADDRESSING CHANGE IN INTENSITY, OCCURRENCE AND UNCERTAINTY OF STORMWATER
(Feb 2003)

Professor David B utler and Professor Cedo Maksimovic are part of a successful multi-institution, collaborative EPSRC and industry bid of over £0.5M, led by Bradford University. This has been funded under the Climate Change initiative a nd will be undertaken over the next three years. The project focuses on how existing urban drainage systems may be adapted to ameliorate problems caused by climate change. 

WaND: WATER CYCLE MANAGEMENT FOR NEW DEVELOPMENTS (Jan 2003)

Professor David Butler has been successful in winning a multi-institution, collaborative EPSRC and industry funded grant of over £2.5M. This has been funded under the Sustainable Urban Environment initiative and will be undertaken over the next four years. The aim of the project is to support the delivery of integrated, sustainable water management for new developments by provision of tools and guidelines for project design, implementation and management. The project will be co-ordinated within the section by the Urban Water Research Group.