Water Quality Monitoring, Modelling and Management: current needs, challenges and opportunities

A seminar by Prof. Daniel Pete Loucks, Emeritus Professor at Cornell University

Monday, July 15 at 2.30PM in Aula Castigliano, Campus Leonardo, Politecnico di Milano

Abstract: This talk will offer some thoughts regarding the current needs, challenges and opportunities in water quality monitoring, modelling and management. Many needs are highlighted by major pollution events that continue to persist and have not yet been successfully managed. Opportunities mostly focus on improving model applicability or ease of implementation. Challenges seem in most cases to be related to insufficient data for model calibration and validation. This in turn reflects on the challenges of maintaining long term monitoring and knowing what to monitor even before such data are deemed needed. Data useful for developing and validating large scale water quality models are often only sparsely available if at all. This applies in particular for emerging pollutants (e.g. plastics, chemicals, drugs), and especially in most developing countries. Monitoring and modelling water quality at the global scale is important to identify and predict robust hot spot regions of severe water quality degradation, to better understand future (global) changes in response to management actions, and to quantify indicators and linkages among SDGs. For many pollutants, and especially at large scales, water quality modelling is still in its infancy. These are needed to enable meaningful water quality assessments and inform policies needed for water quality management and decision making.

download the flyer

Short Bio: Daniel P. Loucks, Emeritus Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor at the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University in the United States, has been actively involved in both the development and application of water resources systems models for over four decades. As a consultant to private, governmental and international organizations he has participated in regional water resources planning, development and management projects in Africa, Asia, Australia, Eastern and Western Europe, and North and South America. Extended bio and contact.

Innovative Solutions to Pollution in South East and Southern Europe

The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment Programme) and the Government of the Republic of Serbia, with the support from the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea, are convening a Ministerial Conference on Innovative Solutions to Pollution in South East and Southern Europe on 4-5 December 2018 in Belgrade, Serbia. The Conference will focus on the topic of pollution and explore innovative solutions to tackle it, emphasizing the numerous challenges and risks it poses to the region.

The Conference will bring together high-level governmental representatives from South East European and Southern European countries other interested members of the European Union, the European Union Commission, development agencies, international organizations, civil society, private sector and other relevant stakeholders.

The Conference is part of the implementation process of the 2017 United Nations Environment Assembly in which countries agreed to an ambitious vision entitled “Towards a Pollution-Free Planet”.

The Conference is also an important milestone for the 2019 Assembly that will take place in March 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya which will gather the international community around the identification of innovative solutions to environmental challenges and sustainable consumption and production.

The insights and analysis presented in the framework of the Conference will provide a critical cornerstone for the discussion of a pollution-free environment for South East Europe and provide a strategic platform for the development of a joint approach and vision for South East European countries to be presented at the Fourth United Nations Environment Assembly.

Date and venue

The Ministerial Conference on “Innovative Solutions to Pollution in South East and Southern Europe” will take place on 4-5 December 2018. The venue for the Conference is Palace of Serbia in Belgrade, Serbia. The language of the Conference will be English. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided for Serbian.

Further readings (link)

Contacts for further information

The UN Environment Programme will serve as Secretariat of the Conference. In this regard interested stakeholders can contact Mr. Harald Egerer, Head of Office –

UN Environment – Vienna Programme
Office (harald.egerer@un.org) and
Mr. Filippo Montalbetti (filippo.montalbetti@un.org).

For Conference registration:
http://web.unep.org/environmentassembly/node/41383

Training course on Earth Sciences Simulation Environments

Riceviamo dal Prof. Lonati e volentieri diffondiamo
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Dear colleagues,

I would appreciate if you could spread the word about the training course on Earth Sciences Simulation Environments. See more information below.

Thank you very much,
Mª Teresa Pay and Mario Acosta
Course Conveners
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*** Training course on Earth Sciences Simulation Environments ***
*** Barcelona (Spain) from November 27 to 29, 2018 ***
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The Professional Training Program at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), in collaboration with the BSC Earth Sciences Department and the PRACEprogramme, organises the 7th edition of the training course entitled Earth Sciences Simulation Environments that will take place in Barcelona (Spain) fromNovember 27 to 29, 2018.
This training course covers the basics of high-performance computing (HPC) environment oriented towards earth science applications, specifically chemical weather modelling and climate modelling. More precisely, the course will address the following issues:
·         Introduction to earth science fundamentals and modelling.
·         Basic usage of an HPC environment: shell, compilers, libraries, file systems, queuing system.
·         Build and configure targeted earth science applications with the NMMB-MONARCH chemical transport model and with the EC-EARTH climate model.
·         Execute and monitor numerical experiments using a workflow manager.
·         Analyse and visualise model outputs with a full set of tools.
Useful information:
Looking forward to meeting you in Barcelona!
The Education and Training Team and Earth Science Department @BSC
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Seminario sul tema Social Ecological Systems (SES) dynamic modeling and GIS interfaces

Il giorno 5 Ottobre 2018, alle ore 15;30, in aula S1.6 (Edificio 3), il Dr. Bruno Meirelles de Oliveira (biologo della São Paulo University), terra’ un seminario dal titolo

Social Ecological Systems (SES) dynamic modeling and GIS interfaces
il cui sommario e’ in calce, assieme ad un breve curriculum del relatore
Abstract
Multiscale Integrated Model of Ecosystem Services – MIMES is a SES modelling system from System Dynamics that embraces complexity attributes of the system (non-linearity, feedbacks, dynamism, etc) in an interdisciplinary and integrated model. This approach broke the academia limits and has been used by EPA, NOAA, Ocean Conservancy in several countries like United States, Egypt, Cambodia, New Zealand to help in decision making considering Ecosystem Services perspective.
Biosketch
Bruno Meirelles de Oliveira is a biologist (University of São Paulo), MBA in Environment management by Polytechnic School of São Paulo University, Masters in Environmental Sciences by Energy and Environment Institute of the São Paulo University and currently PhD candidate by the same program (2016-2020). His background is in education, rural development and environmental consulting. Develops models focused on Ecosystem Services since 2013.