The monthly 'Water Colloquium' series returns with Professor Alistair Borthwick's talk on water-sediment processes. The 'Water Colloquium' series is organised by WIRC @ Bath, and it explores the breadth of water research being undertaken at the University of Bath and beyond.
Title: Water and Sediment: A Cascade across Scales
Speaker: Professor Alistair Borthwick from the University of Edinburgh
When: Thursday 19 April 2018 at 1.15pm
Where: Room 3.6, Chancellor's Building, University of Bath (Location and maps)
Note: This event is free and open to all.
Abstract:
Water and sediment work together to move material, sculpt landscapes, and contribute to the carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen cycles. This lecture will examine water-sediment processes over multiple space and time scales, raning from the molecule to the ocean. We will see some of the beautiful, fractal forms created by Nature through such processes. The lecture will also consider mankind's interference with water-sediment processes, in particular the effect of hydropower dam cascades on large rivers. In the words of the great poet ...
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
Auguries of Innocence, William Blake (1757-1827)
About the speaker:
Alistair Borthwick has almost 40 years' engineering experience. He is Professor of Applied Hydrodynamics at The University of Edinburgh, an Emeritus Fellow at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and holds Adjunct Professorships at Peking University, NUI Galway, and University College Cork. He was previously Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, where he worked for 21 years from 1990-2011. He was Head of Civil & Environmental Engineering at University College Cork from 2011-13, where he was the Founding Director of the SFI Centre for Mariene and Renewable Energy Ireland. Prof. Borthwick's research interests include environmental fluid mechanics, river basin management, coastal and offshore processes, water and wastewater treatment, and marine renewable energy. Prof. Borthwick was awarded the title of Dr honoris causa by Budapest Muegyetem for contributions to Civil Engineering in 2016. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
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