FIVE-STAR RATED RESEARCH (Dec 2001)

The results of the latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) were published on the 14th December 2001 and within which, the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department was once again awarded the top 5-star rating for the quality of the research it undertakes. As the largest and one of the most active Sections in the Department, we are thus naturally very proud and delighted at this recognition of our work, and of that of our colleagues. As a whole, Imperial College is also now officially ranked as the best University in the UK, with the exception of Cambridge, in which to undertake research. Imperial College gained an RAE rating of 6.68, which was only 0.01 of a point behind Cambridge and a whopping 0.1 of a point ahead of the third place university, Oxford. Further information can be obtained from the RAE website  .

THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORD (Nov 2001)

Anyone awake at 7.20am on Wednesday 21st November, and listening to the BBC's Radio 4, will have heard the dulcet tones of Prof Howard Wheater, who was interviewed about Flood risks in a changing climate. The comments he made in this interview were also apparently reported on Radio 5 Live later that day.

PROF M SIVAPALAN (Nov 2001)

Professor M. Sivapalan, from the University of Perth, will be presenting a seminar on Tuesday 6th November at 1pm until 2pm in Room 141. Professor Sivapalan is well known internationally for a prolific research output in hydrological theory and modelling and his presentation is entitled: Climate, Soil, Vegetation Controls on Streamflow Variability and Required Complexity of Water Balance Models. All members of the Department, including MSc students, are invited to attend. See Prof Howard Wheater for more details.

MSc EXAM RESULTS (Sep 2001)

The Examiners Meeting for both the Environmental Engineering and Hydrology for Environmental Management MSc courses took place on Thursday 20th September. The quality of the students this year, was very high, and those taking the Hydrology course particularly exceptional. The closing comments of the external examiner, Prof Ian Cluckie, were that "both MSc courses were really top-class - without any doubt". Our congratulations go out to all of the MSc students this year for their tremendous efforts in getting through both MSc courses successfully, and we wish them all the very best for the future. We would also like to remind them to please keep in contact with us, and to be sure that there will always be a very warm welcome in the Section for every one of them.

PROFESSOR IAN CLUCKIE (Sep 2001)

Professor Ian Cluckie, from the Department of Civil Engineering at Bristol University, has been the External Examiner for both the Environmental Engineering and Hydrology for Environmental Management MSc courses over the last four years and, as a result, is now required to step down. Over the duration of his term, however, Prof Cluckie has made an invaluable contribution to both courses, introducing new practices, maintaining the very highest standards and showing a very even and balanced hand to both the students and course administrators alike. He will be sorely missed and we are extremely grateful to him for all that he has contributed as external examiner over the past few years. We are however, also pleased to announce that Professor Paul Jowitt, from Heriot Watt University has agreed to act as our next external examiner, and we all very much look forward to welcoming and working with him.

CIWEM YOUNG AUTHORS COMPETITION (Sep 2001)

The annual Young Authors' Competition took place at Imperial College on Wednesday 13th September. All those who attended, from both industry and academia, were treated to 4 excellent and very diverse presentations. In the end, however, the judges awarded the coveted prize to Jenny Banks from Yorkshire Water for her presentation on "Ensuring THM Compliance with Low Cost Solutions". Our congratulations go out to all the Young Authors, although the success of Jenny, who has been intimately involved in a number of projects in the EWRE Section, was particuarly pleasing.

PROF ABDULHAMID GAHZALI (Aug 2001)

Professor Abdulhamid Ghazali, from the Al-Fateh University in Tripoli, will be presenting two seminars on work that he has recently been involved with in Libya. These are entitled: An optimum approach for the utilization of the Great Man-Made River water in Libya (click here for seminar abstract) and Modelling of contaminant transport and seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers (click here  for seminar abstract). Both Seminars will be given on Thursday 30th August 2001 at 1pm until 2pm in Room 141. All members of the Department, including MSc students, are invited to attend. See Dr Adrian Butler for more details.

HONOURS AND AWARDS (Jul 2001)

Prof David Butler has been appointed to Membership of the Foresight Associate Programme on Suststainable Urban Water Management and to CIRIA's Water Engineering Advisory Panel.
Prof Cedo Maksimovic has been appointed IAHR Lecturer for 2001 by the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR) Council.Congratulations to them both.

STUDENT SUCCESS (Jul 2001)

Congratulations to Nicole We ber who has been granted an ORS award in the 2001 round of the Overseas Research Student Award Scheme. Such awards are only given to students judged to have outstanding merit and research potential.

STAFF PROMOTIONS (Jun 2001)

In the recent Academic Staff Review various members of the EWRE/CECWM Section were identified as deserving promotion. These included David Butler, who was promoted to Professor of Water Engineering, and Drs Chris Cheeseman and Christian Onof, both of whom were promoted to Senior Lecturers.
Everyone in the Section is pleased to extend their warmest congratulations to David, Chris and Christian on their well earned and deserved successes.

PROF GEDEON DAGAN (Jun 2001)

Professor Gedeon Dagan from the University of Tel Avi v  will be giving a seminar on: Flow and transport in heterogeneous formations of a bimodal structure on Monday 2nd July 2001 at 5pm (click here for details). This is an open seminar, to be held within the Dept Civil and Environmental Engineering, and to which all are welcome. However those wishing to attend should inform Dr A.P. Butler.

FAREWELL (May 2001)

Many thought that the day would never arrive. However, the 4th May was when the Centre for Environmental Control and Waste Management finally said farewell to Dr Jonathon Knight. 'Johnny' joined CECWM as a PhD student back in 1991, and has since worked as a Research Associate on a number of projects including Chemical phosphorus removal and its influence on sewag e sludge particulates and metal availability, New stabilisation/solidification technologies for the protection of groundwaters, and the Microbial influenced degradation of solidified wastes. He has always been a well-liked and popular member of the Centre, and will be greatly missed by many. We wish him all the very best in his future endeavours.

HYDROLOGY MSc FIELD TRIP (Apr 2001)

The Hydrology for Environmental Management fieldtrip, which was cancelled due to the foot and mouth epidemic has b een re-organised. It is now due to take place between the 8th and 11th May 2001. Contact Neil McIntyre or Dr Adrian Butler for further details.

EXAM RE-SCHEDULE (Apr 2001)

Due to the impending Underground strike, planned to take place on Thursday 3rd May, Examination Paper III for both the Environmental Engineering and Hydrology for Environmental Mangement MSc courses are to be brought forward. These exams will now take place instead on Wednesday 2nd May from 2pm until 5pm. All other exams remain unaffected and unchanged.

MEng SITE VISIT (Mar 2001)

The visits to a municipal wastewater treatment plan t and a potable water treatment plant by the MEng students on the Water option finally took place on the 7th March. Everyone on these site visits would like to extend their sincere gratitude to Anglian Water Plc   for the generous time and hospitality they extended to us all throughout the day.

HEM MSc FIELD TRIP POSTPONED (Mar 2001)

Due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom and concerns about its transmission, the Hydrology MSc Field trip due to take place between 19th to 23rd March has been postponed. It is hoped that this will now take place instead after Easter. The Environmental Engineering MSc Field trip is due to still take place as planned with a full programme of visits.

EE MSc FIELD TRIP 2001 (Feb 2001)

Details of this years Environmental Engineering MSc Field trip are now available from Dr Chris Cheeseman. The trip will take place from 19th to 23 March (inc.) and encompass visits to, for example, water and wastewater treatment plants, a landfill and waste transfer station, a materials recovery facility, a sludge incinerator and a composting plant. Departure from Imperial College will be at 9am on Monday 19th March, with successive overnight stays in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester (2x nights). It is estimated that arrival back at IC will be at 4pm on Friday 23rd March.

LUNCHTIME SEMINARS (Feb 2001)

There will be a series of lunchtime seminars this term, given by final year PhD students. These will take place between 13.00 and 14.00 in Room 141 on FRIDAY lunchtimes in February/March. All members of the Section, including MSc students, are invited.
Friday 2nd March:
K-T. Lau - Optimisation of storage tanks in the integrated urban wastewater system
I. Stoianov - Wavelet transforms for leak detection in water distribution systems
Friday 23rd Feb:
N. McIntyre - Effects of numerical efficiency of stochastic simulation of river quality
B. Jankovic - Management of uncertainty and data accuracy for on-line monitoring and burst detection in water networks
Friday 9th Feb:
J. Fitch - Degradation of environmentally exposed solidified industrial waste
L. Campos - Modelling of slow sand filtration
Friday 2nd Feb:
T. Wagener - Calibration of conceptual hydrological model structures
D. Lekkas - Data-based modelling fro real-time flood forecasting

FAREWELL (Feb 2001)

The Section recently said farewell to Dr Manfred Schutze. Manfred did his PhD with Dr David Butler and has since been in the Section for a number of years as a post-doc. In addition to all of the other good work he undertook, Manfred was intimately involved with the successful launch and running of the Urban Water Journal  . All of the Section would like to wish Manfred the very best in his new life.

IN-SITU DENITRIFICATION (Jan 2001)

As reported in the 10th January issue of Water magazine, Dr Stephen Smith, in collaboration with the WRc, has just been awarded a contract from Wessex Water for a one year pilot study of in situ groundwater denitrification. The project will involve drilling a number of boreholes into an affected chalk aquifer and then injecting controlled doses of glucose. The intention is that the glucose will act as a carbon source for microbes and enable the reduction of nitrates in the groundwater into nitrogen gas.

FAREWELL(Jan 2001)

The Section recently said farewell to Dr Daniel Grolimund. Daniel, a lecturer in Geochemistry, left the Section in January to return to his native Switzerland. All of us in the Section would like to wish Daniel well in his new career.

50 YEARS OF EWRE@IC(Dec 2001)

On December 1st 2001, the EWRE Section held a reunion of all its Alumni in celebration of both its 50th Anniversary, and that of the Environmental Engineering MSc course. This was very well and enthusiastically attended, with Alumni travelling from as far as the Aegean (Themis Lekkas, MSc 1973) and Turkey (Elvan Akkaya, MSc 1997), and from all 5 decades of the MSc course. They included Peter Martin, who attended the MSc course during its very first year in 1950, and Michael Knill from 1952, both of whom gave nostalgic and interesting recollections of their periods of stud y at Imperial College. Other equally delightful presentati ons were given by Milo Purcell (MSc 1982), Jean Venables (MSc 1973) and Gareth George (MSc 1976). A resounding success with alot of fun had by all, a review of the day, along with some photos, can be found on our Alumni pages.

DR PETER COX (Nov 2001)

This is advance notice of a seminar which is to be presented by Dr Peter Cox, of the Hadley Centre, on Tuesday 11 December at 12 noon in Room 228. Peter is leading the development of land surface algorithms for the Hadley Centre Global Climate Models and his presentation will be entitled:
The role of the land surface in climate and climate change
This Seminar also forms the c onclusion to Pro fessor Wheater's Evporation and Soil Water Processes HEM module. All members of the Department are invited to attend. See Prof Howard Wh ea ter for more details.

ALUMNI REUNION (Oct 2001)

Arrangements for the Alumni Reunion, which is being held in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Environmental Engineering MSc course, and to which a ll previous members of the EWRE (PHWRE) Section are invited, are now well underway. For the latest news and the programme of events, please refer to the special 'Reunion' webpage that has been created.

OPENING OF THE ROGER PERRY LABORATORY (Sep 2001)

Thursday 20th September was the day when the newly redesigned and refurbished suite of laboratories (environmental, microbiological and analytical) of the EWRE section were finally opened. Costing in excess of £1.5 million, the opening was marked with a lively internal celebration, with all members of the Department invited. The Laboratories will be officially opened and dedicated to the memory of Prof Roger Perry early next year. Contact Dr Geoff Fowler for more details.

MSc PRIZE WINNERS (Sep 2001)

We are delighted to announce that Aleksander Trifkovic was awarded th e Binnie, Black and Veatch Prize 2001 for the most outstanding student on the Environmental Engineering MSc course. The standard of the MSc Dissertations this year was extremely good and so the award of the IPHE Prize 2001 to Katernia Spanoudaki for the best Disserta tion was especially well earnt.
The standards set by the students on the Hydrology for Environmental Management MSc course were this year exceptional, with Distinctions being awarded to both Thomas Dunkley and Tanguy Le Borgne, and with many others coming very close. The Victor Appleby Prize 2001 for the best Dissertation was awarded to Stephen Boxall. Our sincerest congratulations are extended to all of the students and, in particular, the above mentioned prize winners.

15th OZONE WORLD CONGRESS (Sep 2001)

The 15th Ozone World Congress of the International Ozone Association took place at Imperial College from Tuesday 11th to Friday 14th September, with an associated Ozone in Medical Therapy Conference on Friday 14th to Saturday 15th September. This was very well attended by delegates from around the globe and characterised by some very high quality presentations. The Congress also incorporated several social and networking opportunities including a Congress banquet within the College, and an evening function at the Tower of London and private viewing of the Crown Jewels. Copies of the Proceedings and CD-Rom, which were compiled by Dr Steve Lambert in his capacity as Congress Technical Secretary, are available for purchase from the IOA .

CIWEM YOUNG AUTHORS COMPETITION (Aug 2001)

This year the annual Young Authors' Competition will take place during the 15th World Congress of the International Ozone Association. Both events are being held at Imperial College during September. The Young Authors' Competition is to be held in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building on Wednesday 13th September. There will be a buffet and refreshments at approximately 5.30pm, followed at 6.30pm by the presentation of four papers. No-one from our Section is involved this year, although attendance is encouraged in order to determine the standard of entries for coming years. Anyone wishing to attend should also fill out a registration form. See Dr Steve Lambert for more details.

PROF VLADIMIR LOBANOV (Aug 2001)

Professor Vladimir Lobanov from the Russian State Hydrological Institute in St Petersburg will be giving a Seminar on Methodology and tools for hydrological computations and space-time modelling in non-stationary and non-homogeneous conditions, on Thursday 16th August 2001 at 1pm in Room 228. An abstract of Prof Lobanovs Seminar can be found be clicking here . All members of the Section, including MSc students, are invited to attend. See Dr Christian Onof for more details.

ACADEMIC VISITOR (Jul 2001)

The Section is very pleased to announce the arrival of Prof Abdulhamid Ghazali, from the University of Al-Fateh in Libya, who has come to work over the next few months as an academic visitor with Dr Adrian Butler and Dr Steve Lambert. Prof Ghazalis research combines Hydraulics with Hydrodynamics, with interests in steady and unsteady pipe flows, groundwater contaminant transport and water resource management. He is also General Manager of Sahal Engineering Consultants in Tripoli.

COMPETITION WINNER (Jun 2001)

Lynsey Perry, a joint Imperial College and University of Wolverhampton student supervised by Prof Nigel Graham/Dr Steve Lambert and Dr Kally Kaur, has won an all expenses paid trip to attend the British Association for the Advancement of Science Conference to be held in Glasgow in September. Lynsey, a 1st year PhD student beat off strong competition when she presented her paper entitled "Acid-washing of granular activated carbon and its impact on drinking water quality", and was delighted when she was announced the winner by a panel of 5 judges. We would all like to congratulate Lynsey on her well deserved success.

GRADUATION DAY (May 2001)

Graduation Day for all those successful in obtaining their PhD degrees over the last academic year, plus the 1999-2000 intake on the Environmental Engineering and Hydrology for Environmental Management MSc courses, is due to take place this year on the 9th May. So look out for those familiar faces dressed in their black and claret gowns, surrounded by beaming relatives - and remind them to pass on their details to our Alumni !

FIRST PRIZE WINNER (Apr 2001)

Martin Currie, a PTP Imperial College / WRc student, supervised by Prof Nigel Graham, Dr Steve Lambert and Dr Tom Hall (WRc), recently presented a Poster presentation on his research at the IWA 2nd Young Researchers Conference, and for which he won First Prize. We would all like to congratulate Martin on this tremendous success.

MSc DESIGN PROJECTS (Apr 2001)

The presentation of the Water Treatment plant and Wastewater Treatment plant design projects, part of the coursework requirements for the MSc in Environmental Engineering, are scheduled to take place on Wednesday 9th May. Each group will be allowed 15 minutes to present their reports, with a subsequent 5 minutes allowed for questions. Further details will be circulated internally in due course or can be obtained from Dr David Butler.

FICE (Mar 2001)

Those of you who see and read the “New Civil Engineer” will be aware that Prof Cedo Maksimovic was admitted directly to Fellowship of the Institution of Civil Engineers and that Dr Richard Jardine transferred to Fellowship. The Sec tion would like to join the rest of the Department in congr atulating both of them on these achievements.

VISITING PROF APPOINTED (Mar 2001)

The Section is delighted to announce the acceptance by Dr Paul Hardisty, of Komex Clarke Bond, of a Visiting Professorship in the Department. This association is due to run, in the first instance, from 1 March 2001 until 28 February 2002.

BBC COUNTRYFILE (Mar 2001)

Viewers of the BBC's Countryfile programme on Sunday 4th March will have seen Prof Howard Wheater offering his expert opinion on the effects of global warming and potential for flooding in the UK over coming years. Also inte rviewed was Dr Jaco b Tompkins, a PhD alumni and long-time Research Assistant within the Section, currently working with the National Farmers Unio n  .

PhD SUCCESS (Feb 2001)

Congratulations to Alex Z acharof who successfully defended his PhD thesis on 'Stochastic modelling of landfill leachate and biogas production incoroporating waste heterogeneity' at the end of February.

LONDON EVENING STANDARD (Feb 2001)

In response to a recent report that claimed the world will suffer catastrophic flooding and famine over the next 100 years as a result of 'manmade' global warming, the London Evening Standard interviewed leading commentators including Professor Howard Wheater for their views. Professor Wheater was reported as saying that 'It was a complex issue, which would be resolved by the weight of opinion. Certainly the climate was changing, and looked from all the evidence that it was also changing because of the emission of greenhouse gases.'

LABORATORY NEWS (Feb 2001)

Latest word from Dr Geoff Fowler who, along with the Technical Services Manager Clive Hargreaves is overseeing the progress of the new EWRE laboratories, is that all the construction work is currently on schedule and due to be completed by 16th March. The laboratories will then be handed over to the fitters for the installation of the benches and ot her furniture.

PROF NIGEL GRAHAM (Feb 2001)

Professor Nigel Graham has recent ly returned to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Kowloon, China, where he is currently a third of the way through taking a 2-year s abbatical. He has already planned his next visit to the Section, however, which is due to coincide with the CIWEM Advances in Rapid Granular Filtration in Water Treatment Conference, to be held at Imperial College, between the 4th to 6th April.

NEW LECTURER APPOINTED(Jan 2001)

The Section is pleased to announce that Neil McIntyre has recently accepted an appoint ment as lecturer in hydrology and water quality modelling. Neil is currently in the final stages of completing his PhD, and will replace Dr Matthew Lees, who will be leaving after Easter 2001.
Neil is a chartered Engineer, who obtained a first class honours degree from Edinburgh University in 1990, after which he worked for the Lothian Regional Council Department of Water and Drainage for 7 years.
Neil was chosen from a very competitive field, the shortlist of which included two candidates from the USA and one from a senior position in the UK Water Industry. We wish him well in his new role and look forward to working with him.

PROF NIGEL GRAHAM (Jan 2001)

Professor Nigel Graham is continuing with his sabbatical at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Kowloon, China, whilst maintaining regular contact with the staff and students of the Section. His next visit to the Section is due to coincide with the Chinese New Year, between the 22nd to 26th January.