Tenth International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Water Pollution
9 - 11 June 2010
Bucharest, Romania
Overview
The tenth International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Water Pollution recently took place in Bucharest organised by the Politehnica University and the Wessex Institute of Technology of the UK, with the Conference Chairs, Professor Anca Marinov and Professor Carlos A Brebbia representing the two institutions. Professor Ecaterina Andronescu, Rector of the University acted as Honorary Chairman.
The conference, which started in 1991, has always been very successful and provided a continuous exchange of information between scientists, managers and academics from different countries, concerning water pollution problems.
A worldwide increase in demand for water by communities, industries and agriculture, has placed great importance on water science and management practice. The future development of many countries will depend decisively upon how the increasing demand for water will be satisfied, and how the economic and environmental cost for the demand will be met.
The objective of the Water Pollution conference is to create an international forum for inter-disciplinary discussion and dissemination of the papers related to water quality and environmental problems caused by the increase of pollutant levels or by bad management of water resources.
Opening Session and Hromadka Award
The opening session of Water Pollution took place at the Politehnica University of Bucharest where the delegates were taken by bus from the meeting location in the centre of town. There the delegates were received by the University authorities.
Professor Marian Gheorghe, Vice-Rector for International Affairs and Professor of Mechanical Engineering explained that the University is the most important technical institution in the country. He welcomed Professor Carlos A Brebbia, as PhD Honoris Causa of his institution and as such member of the Senate as well.
Marian described some of the activities of the Politehnica in terms of international links and participation in different types of programmes. He likes to encourage these activities and hoped that some of the participants will, in due time, consider becoming partners with the Politehnica.
His address was followed by Professor Carlos Brebbia’s remarks.
“Thank you very much Professor Marian Gheorghe for your welcoming remarks and for the help we have received from your prestigious Institution in organising these conferences with the collaboration of your staff, particularly Professor Anca Marinov.
“I hope that these initiatives will be the beginning of future programmes of collaboration in research and training activities. My Institution, the Wessex Institute of Technology, will be honoured to participate in any joint programmes.
“For me personally it is a great pleasure to be back at the Politehnica, particularly in this room where I had the honour of receiving a PhD Honoris Causa in 1994, followed by the delivery of my commencement address on the topic of numerical modelling of engineering problems using boundary elements.
“It is also rewarding to see how much Romania has changed since then and how beautiful Bucharest looks now, in spite of the economic problems that this country, as in most others, is suffering now. These problems – common to many nations - are transient and will not seriously affect the continuous development of Romania as a full member of the European Union.
“We have been planning these meetings for a long time and their success was dependent on the good will of everybody around us. We were pleasantly surprised by how friendly and helpful everybody has been towards us. This is the more important ingredient for the success of our meetings and we are grateful to the Politehnica in particular for their continuous support.”
Professor Brebbia then proceeded to introduce the first of the keynote speakers, Professor Henning Bjornlund, who gave a talk on ‘Sustainable Irrigation; complexity, issues and challenges’.
“Henning Bjornlund is Associate Research Professor at the Centre for Regulation and Market Analysis, University of Southern Australia as well as Research Chair at the University of Lethbridge in Canada.
“He had a very varied and interesting career, starting as a teacher in his native Denmark until becoming more adventurous and working on tropical farming in the Cayman Islands.
“This was the turning point in his life. After four years in the Cayman Islands he went to Australia where he finished a Bachelors in Business Real Estate and proceeding to complete a PhD on Business and Management on Land and Water. Following this he became a Lecturer at the same University of South Australia.
“Since then he has received a series of prestigious awards and honours on topics related to water studies.
“Henning’s achievements are many, including a long series of grants from prestigious Australian and International Institutions. His contributions to the international scientific community in terms of Conference organisation, reviewing and refereeing, committee work and the like is impressive and demonstrates as well as his commitment to society as a whole.
“Henning’s list of publications comprises nearly 250 of which 100 or so are refereed. He has written four monographs and edited books and nearly 30 book chapters.
“Henning’s output is nothing short of outstanding.
“His collaboration with WIT has produced excellent results through his participation in the Sustainable Irrigation conferences, for which he has organised special sessions. He is also the Editor of a book recently published by our publishing division, WIT Press, entitled ‘Incentives and Instruments for Sustainable Irrigation’.
“In view of his outstanding achievements, I would like to express the appreciation of our Institute by awarding Henning in the name of our Board of Directors, the WIT Medal to Eminent Scientists. This medal that started in 1995 has been received by over 30 colleagues, each of them internationally renown.”
The next speaker was Professor Anca Marinov of the Politehnica who spoke on ‘How Sustainable Irrigation can improve soil and groundwater quality’. Professor Brebbia introduced Professor Marinov as follows;
“Anca is Professor of Fluid Mechanics at the Politehnica University of Bucharest in the Department of Power Engineering. She has a Masters and PhD from this University, and latter on the topic of Groundwater Pollution. She has been visiting Associate Professor at Middlesburg College, Vermont, USA and visited many other Institutions abroad. She is a researcher at the Romanian Academy, Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics.
“She has carried out research on;
- Mathematical Modelling of Waves in Lakes
- Transient movement in long pipelines
- Groundwater Hydrodynamics
- Pollution Dispersion in Groundwater
- Unsaturated Soil Pollution
- Nitrogen Contamination
- Hydropower Engineering
- Hydrology
- Environmental Problems
“Anca has published six books and a further four text books, which gives an indication of her contributions to research as well as teaching. She has nearly 100 scientific papers to her credit.
“Because of all her achievements I would like to take this opportunity to award Anca the Hromadka Medal that was instituted by a Member of our Board of Directors.
“The Prize was launched five years ago by Professor Ted Hromadka, who sits on the Board of Directors of WIT and is recognised worldwide for his pioneering research in developing new computational techniques; as well as for his professional engineering work on hydraulics and hydrology. He has numerous publications, including papers and books and has helped to develop better studies of practice in his native California. Until recently he was Professor at the State University California at Long Beach and is now Professor at West Point Academy.”
Carlos then proceeded to Award the Medal before she started delivering her keynote address.
The next keynote address was given by Dr Vasile Turcu from Terra Preta. Vasile graduated as a Physicist from the University of Bucharest and went to obtain a PhD degree from the University of Utah in the USA.
He is founder and owner of the research company called Terra Preta after working at the Meteorological Office of Romania. His work now involves consulting on soil properties, including developing new instrumentation.
Vasile – Carlos said – symbolizes the new spirit of business and enterprise in the country, helping to develop links between academia and industry. This is something that has taken a great deal of time and effort to achieve in most other EU countries. As a matter of fact many academic systems with the EU are still too conservative - Carlos thought, in terms of developing efficient models to serve the needs of society as a whole and wealth creation in industry. Vasile’s efforts need further encouragement.
The first – inaugural – session of the conference was closed and the delegates returned to the centre of Bucharest.
Conference Sessions
The conferences sessions were enhanced by a series of invited presentations, ie;
‘Impact of Environmentally Polluted Water on Health’
by M Pele, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Bucharest, Romania
‘Hydrochemical evaluation of different spring waters for bottling’
by F Jaening, German Scientific–Technical Association for Environmental Reconstruction and Brownfield Redevelopment, Germany
‘Modelling and Simulation of Wastewater Treatment Processes’
by D Robescu, Politechnic University of Bucharest, Romania
‘On experiments an oil-spill boom in three Atlantic coastal zones: La Rochelle, Loriet and Brest’
by F Muttern, Engineering School EIGSI La Rochelle, France
‘Experimental field research on nitrate balance in agricultural soils’
by A Marinov, Politechnic University of Bucharest, Romania
‘Microbial parameters as indicators of mariculture impact on the marine environment’
by G Zappalà, Instituto per L’Ambiente Marino Costero, Italy
Social Events
The conference offered excellent opportunities for the delegates to get to know each other better during coffee and lunch breaks, in addition to the interaction that took place during the discussion part of the formal sessions.
The International Scientific Advisory Committee of the conference met over dinner to discuss reconvening the meeting in 2012. The list of topics and objectives of the conference were reviewed and improvements made to ensure that the conference continues to evolve and reflects current research and industrial requirements. Several locations were suggested for 2012 which will be investigated by the WIT Conference Division.
The conference dinner took place in a restaurant serving Romanian dishes and offering different artistic shows. The dishes and wines were excellent and contributed to creating a friendly atmosphere.
Carlos closed the meeting by thanking the delegates for having attended the meeting and invited the authors to submit extended versions of their papers for publication in one of the Institute’s Journals.
Publication of Proceedings
The proceedings of Water Pollution X, 384pp (Print ISBN: 978-1-84564-448-2; Online ISSN: 1743-3509) are available from WIT Press priced at £146/US$292/€198. Orders can be placed online at www.witpress.com or by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., telephone: +44 (0) 238 029 3223 or fax: +44 (0) 238 029 2853.
Papers from the conference will also be hosted online in the WIT eLibrary as Volume 135 of WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment (ISSN: 1743-3509). For more details visit the WIT eLibrary at http://library.witpress.com
Wessex Institute