Strengths of AoE Team

Research Funding

During 1993-2000, a total of 46 external peer-reviewed projects (43 RGC, 1 Croucher Foundation, 1 ECF and 1 ITF projects) in the Water Environment Engineering area have been awarded to Hong Kong members of this AoE. The sum total of these 46 grants is $35.79 million. This does not include any of the other grant awards in some of the ‘home’ disciplines (e.g. Chemistry or Ecology). Three of the completed RGC projects have been rated as excellent projects by the Research Grants Council. As a comparison, RGC project awards to all environment-related projects amount to only around $11 M annually on average (1994-97; including projects in air and water environment, in all disciplines ranging from mathematics to planning). 

Consultant Contracts

In addition, during the same period, over 15 research consultancies in Water Environment Engineering have been completed. Examples include the Shatin Wastewater Treatment Plant sludge foaming study, the Risk assessment on centralised vs distributed system for the Strategic Sewage Disposal Scheme (SSDS), Shanghai combined sewage project, and the Yuen Long Bypass Floodway Study.

Academic Reputation

The AoE members include three Croucher Senior Research Fellows, one member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a 1994 China Natural Science Prize for contributions in oxidation chemistry, four HKU Outstanding Researcher Awards, Fellow of Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Honorary/advisory professorships at many universities (including Academia Sinica, Nanjing, Tongji, Tianjin, Hohai, Jilin, National Taiwan), Associate editorship of top international journals (including Journal of Hydraulic Engineering [American Society of Civil Engineers], Advances in Environmental Research, Journal of Hydroinformatics, China Ocean Engineering, Biometrika, Journal of Chemical Society Dalton Transactions). The members have earned a solid international reputation for water environmental engineering research (in particular in anaerobic wastewater treatment, environmental hydraulics, and algal bloom dynamics), and in the allied fields of Chemistry and Statistics.

There is an extensive publication track record in top SCI journals based on research performed in Hong Kong, and time-tested contacts with leading research institutions in North America, Europe, and the Mainland. Selected recognitions include: plenary lecture at 28th Congress of the International Association for Hydraulic Research, Graz, Austria, Aug 1999; Keynote address at 8th International Conference on Anaerobic Digestion; Earth Science Systems Research Award for best paper at the 4th International Conference on Reuse of Contaminated Land, London, July 1996; member of International Review Panel of the Strategic Sewage Disposal Scheme 2000; best doctoral dissertation award by USA Association of Environmental Engineering Professors 1997; best doctoral thesis of HKU 1994 (Lee Ka Shing Prize); ASCE Karl Emil Hilgard Prize 1989. Recently the AoE members organised and hosted a most successful international conference - 7th International Symposium on River Sedimentation and 2nd International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics - December 16-18, 1998, attended by over 300 delegates from 35 countries. The conference was sponsored by the International Research and Training Centre on Erosion and Sedimentation (IRTCES) in Beijing, the Croucher Foundation and K.C.Wong Educational Foundation, and others. The conference was attended by a strong show of the who's who in sedimentation and environmental hydraulics, including a keynote address by the former Minister of Water Resources of China, Mr. Yang Zhen-huai.

Training of Research Students

Perhaps more importantly, the AoE key members have trained the first generation of high-tech environmental engineers in the last fifteen years; a total of 21 Ph.D and 15 M.Phil. theses have been completed under their supervision. Graduates have all won highly competitive jobs, and many now hold responsible positions in the Government or industry. For example, the three PhD graduates in hydrology in 1999-2000 are now working as postdoctoral fellows at NASA (Maryland, USA), in Delft University of Technology, and in Nanyang Technological University. Other recent examples of student training also include three best student/young professional paper awards from the HKIE Environmental Division and Hong Kong Waste Management Association on disinfection, leachate oxidation, and solid waste composting.

Initiatives

The AoE team members are all active researchers and have well-proven success record in obtaining external peer-reviewed funding. In addition to the funding requested herein, some of the project areas have already secured initial funding: i) A related project on “Innovative modelling and visualisation technology for environmental assessment and education” has been funded by the Innovation and Technology Support Fund ($5.5M) in June 2000. ii) Harmful Algal Bloom and mariculture research was awarded an RGC Group Research Project in 1999 ($4.4M) and a grant from Environment and Conservation Fund in 1998 ($1.4M); iii) Initial funding for sediment-water-pollutant interactions area was awarded by a CNSF/RGC Joint Research Scheme in 1999 ($0.7M); iv) a pilot project for East River Research Study is under consideration by HKU; v) a research consultancy by the Drainage Services Department for the long term solution of West Kowloon/MongKok urban flooding problem is under progress/development ($0.7M); vi) An agreement to develop new oxidation technology for clean water has also recently been signed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou and HKU's Chemistry Department.