Webinar on Innovative Approaches to Water Quality Modelling in Coastal Environments (Jointly organized by HKIE CVD and PolyU)

 Date, time & venue

22^nd June 2022 (Wednesday), 17:00-18:00, Seminar via Zoom Meeting

Organized by

HKIE Civil Division and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Programme Highlight

The ocean covers 71% of the Earth’s surface. The interplay between oceans and atmosphere regulates the climate and it is responsible for the main changes we have been observing in the last decades. Societies are strongly linked to ocean that is one of the main source of food, materials, energy, and transportation. Updated estimates show more than 40% of the global population lives in areas within 200 km of the ocean and the great majority of mega cities are coastal (12 over 15). Future projections indicate that the coastal population will tend to increase dramatically, while increasing the pressures on marine and coastal environments. Climate change, non-sustainable exploitation of resources, land-based pollution of water and air represent a serious threat to the productivity and good environmental status of the oceans. Coastal areas, being a physical boundary between land and ocean, are particularly under pressure from both anthropic activities and natural impacting phenomena (Sea Level Rise, extreme coastal floods, coastline erosion/accretion).

In this context, fighting marine pollution is a priority to safeguarding the marine and coastal environment and , in particular, the water quality. Marine waters are subjected to many threats and prevention and preparedness actions require more and more sophisticated technologies and predictive models. Remote sensing and in-situ monitoring equipment have increased the ability to quantify several water quality parameters and to support actions to contrast accidental releases of noxious substances. However, numerical models are still one of the most important tools in order to predict the dynamical behaviours of pollutants in the water bodies. During the seminar, different modelling strategies will be presented and together with their application in the costal environments, with a particular focus on two of the major sources of pollution (oil-chemical spills and marine litter). In a second part of the seminar, innovative approaches will be presented showing the future trends in the water quality modelling, spanning from the use of Big Data techniques (e.g. clustering) and the implementation of the state-of-the-art Lagrangian measures (e.g. Lagrangian Coherent Structures and Transition Path Theory for water masses connectivity).

 *Please complete the on-line registration at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7wxLlCCiSBWk6lKWwb5y_g

Language

English

Fee

Free of Charge.

Speakers

Dr Alessandro Stocchino

Dr Stocchino joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU) as an associate professor in August 2020. He obtained his Msc degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Genova (Italy) in 1998. He received his PhD in Hydraulic Engineering from the University of Padua (Italy) in 2001.

Prior to joining HKPU, he had nineteen years of experience as assistant and associated professor in fluid mechanics at the Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department of the University of Genova (Italy). He has published several papers in top peer-reviewed journals and presented more than 30 papers in international conferences in the field of Environmental Fluid mechanics, Morphodynamics and biofluid mechanics. He had been the Program Leader of the Msc Program in Environmental Engineering at the University of Genova (Italy). The main research interests span a broad range of basic and applied fluid mechanics topics, covering river mechanics, Lagrangian mass transport in rivers and coastal environments, turbulent flow structures and human health related applications, such human eye pathologies. In the last four years, he had been Principal Investigator of several European Research Project marine pollution (oil-spills and microplastics) and water quality management.

Registration & Enquiries

The number of participants is limited to 500 on a first-come-first served basis. Priority will be given to members of the Civil Division.

Email registration will not be accepted. Successful applicants will be informed by email and provided a link to the Zoom Meeting at the designated time slot. Participants need to sign in using the membership no. and name entered at the time of registration. A CPD certificate will be issued 3 weeks after the seminar based on this membership no. and name.

For enquiries, please contact Mr. Vincent Tam via email: vincent@wingsconsulting.com.hk.