DECEMBER 2006 NEWS

Professor Howard Wheater traveled to Riyadh in November to receive the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Water Prize

Welcome to Dr Saad Tahir. Dr Tahir obtained his BSc and MSc degrees from Baghdad University in Industrial Chemistry. After obtaining his PhD in the field of Industrial Chemistry at Brunel University he worked with the UOP London site as a Research Scientist, Research Fellow at Kings College London and as a part time senior lecturer at Brunel University within the Centre for Environmental Research. Dr Tahir has published more than 50 publications and one US patent in Water and Air Purification using Catalytic Technology.  He has recently joined Professor Sue Grimes team as an Honorary Research Scientist and his research at this stage is to collect information on different types of waste materials in Middle East especially Arab Gulf as well as undertake a research in the field of waste recycling.  Welcome to our our section.

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'Honouring the creative with this award is, with no doubt, a recognition of the distinguished efforts and achievements they make to preserve this precious wealth. Their efforts help in water conservation, protecting water from pollution, improving its quality and in many other fields. This honouring also serves as a motivation to every one to exert utmost efforts and develop means of research with all capacity.'www.psipw.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Howard Wheater traveled to Riyadh in November to receive the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Water Prize for his work on water resources management in arid and semi-arid areas. Prince Sultan established the prize in 2004 to highlight the importance of water and to recognize contributions to research and practice in the water field.

Howard was nominated by the British Hydrological Society for his contributions to the hydrology of arid areas over some 25 years. These include improved understanding of hydrological processes in arid areas, and the development of modelling tools for flood, water resource and water quality management. He has worked on projects throughout the Middle East, including the first flood study of the Sultanate of Oman in 1981, a major representative basins water resources research programme in the South West of Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, and a study of recharge management in Oman in the 1990s. He contributed to the foundation of UNESCO's Wadi Hydrology programme for the Arab Region, and currently co-Chairs UNESCO's G-WADI global programme for water resources management in arid and semi arid regions (www.g-wadi.org). He was invited by the Japanese government to give a key-note speech to the 2003 Kyoto World Water Summit on water resources management in drylands and is currently a consultant to the State of Nevada concerning hydrological aspects of radioactive waste management.

Welcome to Professor Han Ke a visiting academic from Zhejiang University, China. Professor Ke is working with Prof Sue Grimes for a duration of two years. He obtained his PhD in Geotechnical Engineering in July 2002, from Zhejiang University and since then has worked in academia in the field of geoenvironmental and geotechnical engineering and his expertise is in tackling problems associated with landfills, soil reuse, and soil mechanics. 

Dr Stephen Smith congratulates Maria Monou for receiving the AES Laboratories Prize for 2006 for her project: Experimental Investigations to Optimise the Anaerobic Codigestion of Industrial Biowastes and Agricultural Livestock Wastes in Cyprus, which was completed as part of the MSc course in Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Development.  The project was supervised by Dr Smith in collaboration with Dr Despo Fatta, Department of Civil and Environmental, University of Cyprus. Dr Smith is currently supervising a PhD programme on biodrying municipal solid waste to produce auxilliary fuels in collaboration with the Vassiliko Cement Works in Cyprus, and met Maria in the Environmental Engineering laboratory at the University during a recent visit in December.