Project Partners: Descriptions and Contact Details

The are eight participants in the consortium. Four of the participants, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), the Geological Survey of Denmark (GEUS), the University of Castilla la Mancha (UCLM) from Spain and the Centro Elletrotecnico Sperimentale Italiano (CESI) all have long experience in the field of water resources and water resource management. Each of these organisations will be responsible for constructing Bbns in their own case study areas. The relevant organisations have intimate knowledge of the catchment within which they are working and are fully familiar with the problems being faced by these regions. They also have good contacts with local stakeholder groups, and will therefore be in a strong position to set up the stakeholder meetings and workshops that form a major feature of the project. Close contact with the region also means that collection of data will be made much less difficult than would normally be the case.

Birmingham University (UK) is sub-contracted to CEH (UK), while Regione Abruzzo and DEI (Politecnica di Milano) are assistant contractors to CESI.

Lead Scientist: Dr. John Bromley
CEH Wallingford, Maclean Building
Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford
Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.

Tel: +44 (0) 1491 692333
Fax: +44 (0) 1491 692424
EMail: jby@ceh.ac.uk

Lead Scientist: Dr. Finn Jensen
Dept. of Computer Science, Institute for Electronic
Systems, Decision Support Systems Group
Aalborg University, Aalborg 9220 Denmark.

Tel: +45 9635 8903
Fax: +45 98158578
Email: fvj@cs.auc.dk

Lead Scientist: Dr. Hans Jørgen Henriksen
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
Thoravej 8 2400 Copenhagen
Denmark.

Tel: +45 3814 2771
Fax: +45 38142050
Email: hjh@geus.dk

Lead Scientist: Dr. Francisco Martín de Santa Olalla
Universidad de Castilla la Mancha (UCLM)
Campus Universitario 02071
Albacete, Spain.

Tel: +34 967 599 200
Fax: +34 967 599 233
Email: fsantaolalla@prov-b.uclm.es

Lead Scientist: Dr. Paolo Stigliano
Sperimentale Italiano Giacinto Motta S.p.a (CESI)
Via Rubattino 54 20134 Milano
Italy.

Tel: +39 (0)2 2125 8106
Fax: +39 (0)2 2125 5480
Email: stigliano@cesi.it

Lead Scientist: Prof. Rodolfo Soncini Sessa
(Associated partner) Politecnico di Milano (DEI)
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32
20133 Milano, Italy.

Tel: +39 (02) 2399 5906
Fax: +39 (02) 2399 5908
Email: soncini@elet.polimi.it

Lead Scientist: Ing. Caputi
Regione Abruzzo Giunta regionale (Assoc. partner)
Portico di San Bernadino 25
67100 L'Aquila, Italy.

Tel: +39 (0) 862 364503
Fax: +39 90) 862 364565
Email: pcaputi@regione.abruzzo.it

Lead Scientist: Professor Judith Petts
Centre for Environmental Research & Training
University of Birmingham
Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.

Tel: +44 121 693 2888
Fax: +44 121 693 2889
j.i.petts@bham.ac.uk

The consortium is a mix of organisations from the worlds of research and consultancy, and from government and the private sector. We have three universities (UoB, UCLM, and UoA), two government research organisations (CEH, Geus), and one private consultant (CESI) assisted by a local government organisation (Abruzzo) and a University Department (DEI). The local government organisation (Abruzzo) is an end-user body involved in the development of integrated water strategies for the local region. This combination recognises that the implementation of successful integrated management can best be achieved by harnessing the skills of the private, government and educational sectors.

CEH Wallingford, with a staff complement of around 150, is a government research organisation and a component of the Natural Environment Research Council, which reports to the United Kingdom Department of Trade and Industry through the Office of Science and Technology. The Centre is recognised as one of the worlds leading research organisations working on fundamental and applied issues relating to water in the natural environment. Its research underpins water related policy development within UK government departments, the European Union and various other national governments and international organisations.

CEH is at the forefront of the development of new methods and tools for the sustainable management of the water environment for government regulatory bodies and the private sector. Innovative technologies are licensed to both small and medium enterprises through a range of commercial ventures. A large programme of exchange and training of researchers is maintained through the Centre's collaborative links with other research and higher education institutions across Europe and throughout the world.

Over the last ten years the Centre has been involved in over fifty Framework RTD projects and other studies for different Directorate's General of the European Commission. The majority of these research projects have been with the "Environment and Climate" specific programmes. Other research has been undertaken within the Agriculture, Telematics Applications, Standards Measurement and Testing, International Cooperation, and Training and Mobility Programmes of FP's 2,3, and 4.

Visit CEH Wallingford's Website.

The Decision Support Systems Unit was formally founded in 1991 as part of the Department of Computer Science at Aalborg University. However, the research in decision support systems at Aalborg University began in 1985 when a number of people at AAU became involved in a joint European project on constructing an Expert EMG Assistant (P599). A result of this project was MUNIN, the first real-world application of Bayesian networks.

In cooperation with the Statistics group at AAU the team also developed the 'so called' Hugin method, a method for performing inference in Bayesian networks with multiple paths. Hugin is now the name of a software shell for constructing and performing inference in Bayesian networks, and is produced and marketed by Hugin Expert Ltd.

Since then the unit has focused on developing and refining methods for Bayesian networks and decision networks (influence diagrams). The unit has also been involved in several projects that apply Bayesian networks for decision support. Currently, the major project of the unit is SACSO where the unit cooperates with Hewlett-Packard on the construction of interactive troubleshooters.

The senior staff of the unit consists of Professor Finn V. Jensen, Associate Professor Uffe Kjærulff and Associate Professor Kristian G. Olesen. In addition there are 8-10 research assistants and Ph.D. students who are attached to the unit. Experience of staff members Finn V. Jensen is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computing Science at Aalborg University. He is the author of a textbook, 'An introduction to Bayesian Networks', and more than 40 scientific publications in the field of Bayesian networks and their applications. He is the principal investigator for three major research programs employing 10 researchers and has been a progamme committee member and program chair of more than 10 scientific conferences. Professor Jensen codesigned the Bayesian network shell, Hugin and co-founded the 'Hugin' company, which markets the shell.

Visit Aalborg University's Website.

The Water Resources Group at GEUS is contributing to the ECHIP project and has been involved in numerous research projects and consulting services in Denmark as well as in the EU and throughout the world. GEUS co-ordinated the EU funded research project Groundwater Samplers for Water Wells (CEC ACE 89/DK 5/D3 B6600) and has been a member of the team behind PALAEAUX (Management of Coastal Aquifers in Europe) (ENV4-CT95-0156). At present the group is involved in FRACFLOW (ENV4-CT97-0441) as co-ordinator, in PORE-TO-CORE (ENV4-CT97-0457) and BASELINE (Natural baseline quality in European aquifers) (EVK1-CT99-0006). In addition the group is involved in the Danish Environmental Research Programme on Pesticides in Groundwater. GEUS is also responsible for the National Groundwater Monitoring programme and has been assigned to establish an overview of the fresh water resources in Denmark by the development of a National Water Resources Model (NWRM) during the period 1996-2000.

Visit the GEUS Website.

Work is being carried out in close consultation with Copenhagen Energy, the end-user responsible for water supply to the Danish capital. Because the results will be of value to their ongoing management plans Copenhagen Energy has a considerable interest in the project, and their staff are conducting much of the stakeholder engagement process within the project, in collaboration with Birmingham University.

Visit the Copenhagen Energy Website.

The Regional Development Institute is a Research Centre of the University of Castilla-La Mancha located at Albacete. Within the Regional Development Institute the areas of research are agronomy, environment, water management, irrigation engineering, rural economics and development, remote sensing and geographical information systems.

In the Environment and Water Section there are about twenty researchers who have been working for fifteen years on different aspects related to these subjects: plant cover cartography, soil cartography, characterisation of the properties of the vegetation cover, soil typology, climate-vegetation interactions, soil-vegetation-water relationships, use of water resources, etc.

The working team involved in this project has participated as a member of the EFEDA project phase 1 (Contract EPOC-CT-90-0030). The team also participated in the second phase of the EFEDA project, in which Professor F. Martin de Santa Olalla was co-ordinator of sub-project II: Vegetation, Soil Physics, Inventory and Impact (contract EV5V-CT-93-0272). Recently it has finished its work as subcontractor of RESMEDES project (Remote Sensing of Mediterranean Desertification and Environmental Changes) funded by the European Union (Contract ENV4-CT95-0094). At present the team is involved as a partner in the EU- funded project "Modelling the effect of land degradation on climate. Climate and land degradation" (ENV4-CT98-0696).

Visit the UCLM Website.

CESI is a private company, which belongs to the Enel Group, the major Italian Electrical Utility. It was established in 1956 and has a presence in over 35 countries throughout the world. Since being set up CESI has been a market leader in the development of electrical power systems and has for many years offered the services of its skilled technicians to electrical utilities, electromechanical and electronic manufacturers and other large-scale users of electric power.

Since January 1st 2000 CESI has enlarged its field of activity and has acquired the Enel Group. The shareholders of the "new" CESI well represent the various components of the electric sector: electrical utilities (Enel Group, Edison, Sondel, AEM of Milan and Turin), the Italian Independent System Operator (GRTN), leading European electromechanical groups (ABB, Alstom, Pirelli, Schneider, Ansaldo, Siemens etc), and industrial users. The merger of these two respected organizations has given rise to a company of 1100 people covering all sectors in the provision of electrical energy.

More importantly from the point of view of this proposal CESI has acquired the Research and Development unit of Enel, which among other things, specialises in the field of environmental impacts on energy production. The Enel Group has had more than 50 years experience in the field of the environment and will bring considerable expertise to MERIT. Using this expertise an Environmental Business Unit (EBU) has been set up which specialises in the environment. The mission of the BU is to enhance the quality of the environment by finding innovative solutions based on sustainable development criteria. In particular, the EBU offers the scientific and technological competence to help make the best use of natural resources in the generation of electricity. The EBU, is located in Segrate (Milan), with a staff of about 125, and is able to deal with complex environmental and territorial problems through a systematic approach, state-of-the-art technological instruments and high-level specialised knowledge. The environmental issues dealt with by the company include, water resources management; waste management; land use evaluation; soil and groundwater quality and atmospheric pollution measurements and modelling.

These concerns are dealt with mainly in relation to the interactions between the environment and power plants. The same methodologies are also applicable in a great variety of cases.

CESI's interest in MERIT lies with the fact that much of the electricity generated in parts of Italy uses hydro-power and is thus in direct competition for water with other sectors, particularly tourism and agriculture. There is also the problem of the environmental impact of dams to consider. Methodologies to help solve these conflicts and provide a sound basis for future management and planning of water resources will be of great benefit not only to the generating industry but also the country as a whole.

Visit the Websites of CESI and ENEL.

Research and education in DEI was originally focused on electrical engineering. Later on, the number of interdisciplinary research and educational activities expanded to cover all theoretical and applied fields of Computer Science and Systems Analysis. As a consequence DEI is active not only in Electrical Engineering, but also in Environmental Systems and Land Use (ESLU). The research activities of the ESLU group are primarily focused on the application of System Analysis and Control Theory to the field of environmental management and land use. The main research topics are water quality, water management, and decision support systems.

ESLU has studied the problem of modeling and control of river quality both at the theoretical and applied level. Recently the emphasis has been on eutrophication models, plankton dynamics and decision models for the reclamation of eutrophic water bodies. Research is also ongoing in the fields of multipurpose reservoir network control and on the integration of decision and forecast models into decision support systems. These studies include the optimal allocation of monitoring networks, the application of expert systems for model selection and use, and the design and management of model bases. Software for Environmental Impact Assessment has been developed for all the three main phases of the assessment procedure: the formulation of the problem, the analysis and the evaluation. ESLU has produced several commercial software packages, which are used by environmental agencies, engineers and consultants.

Research co-operation or field application is ongoing with CCR-Ispra; CNR - Trasporti 2 Project; CSIRO, Canberra, Australia; CWI Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Departamento General de Irrigacion, Mendoza, Argentina; Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France; EEC - Save Project; FORMEZ; IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria; Institute for Inland Water Management, The Netherlands; IRER; ISMES, Bergamo; Ministero dell'Ambiente; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.; Regione Lombardia; Technische Universität Wien, Austria; Università Bocconi, Milano; Warsaw Polytechnic Institute, Poland.

Visit the DEI Website.

The 6th Directive area is also responsible for the hydraulic management of rivers and for granting concessions related to all matters of water exploitation. The Direction is responsible for environmental policy and integrated management of water and soil in the region.

Visit the Regione Abruzzo Website.

Judith Petts is Professor of Environmental Risk Management and Deputy Director of the Centre for Environmental Research and Training, the University of Birmingham. She has 18 years applied research and advisory work experience in environmental risk management, public communication and involvement and the use of risk assessments in public decision-making.

Professor Petts has been a Specialist Adviser to the UK House of Lords and House of Commons environment committees and is a member of an advisory board of a current European Commission DGXI research project on Dispute Resolution Mechanisms. She has undertaken advisory work for government departments, private companies and international agencies in relation to public communication.

Visit the UoB CERT Website.