WPCE 2022

Prof. Solomon W. Leung
(Keynote Speaker)
Idaho State University, USA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speech Title: Comparison of Elemental Distribution in Major Organs between Rat and Humans and Influence of Mn2+ in Drinking Water

Abstract: Many environmental factors can affect our health, one major factor is our diet intake. However, the knowledge of how elements and electrolytes are accumulated in our body through diet ingestion is not well understood, thus their health effects. Recent cancer research has shown that intracellular heavy metals accumulated in patient’s lymph modes, bone marrow, and liv-er. In this study, we tracked the accumulations of 30 essential metals and electrolytes that were consumed in a regular diet over a lifetime in heart, liv-er, lung, spleen, and kidney for healthy adult rats (120 days); and compared these data with similar information obtained from healthy human individu-als from four different countries. Furthermore, we obtained the elemental distributions in these vital organs with rats that were treated with excessive Mn2+ in their drinking water, in addition to their normal diet. Thus, we could observe how consumption of the excessive Mn affected the accumula-tion of these metals and electrolytes in the vital organs of rats. With such knowledge, we can project how consumption of heavy metal, such as Mn, may affect metal distributions/accumulations in our body.

Brief Bio: Solomon Leung’s Research Background is Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering. And his Research Interests include: •Physicochemical treatment processes and design, particularly in chemical oxidations applied to the treatment of soil, water and wastewater, and disinfection and by-products generated in water and wastewater; •Environmental risk assessment, and toxicology and nanotoxicity; •Nanotechnology, biosensor, and novel applications with nanotechnology; •Tissue engineering, biosignaling, and cancer therapy. He is the author of over 185 presentations with abstracts, 43 referred articles, 83 conference proceedings and book chapters. Dr. Leung is cited more than 1000 times by Science Citation Index (SCI) and Google Scholoar.

 

---

Prof. Yang Liu
(Keynote Speaker)
University of Alberta, Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speech Title: Sustainable Municipal Wastewater Management: From Energy Efficiency to Resource Recovery

Abstract: Wastewater is a resource, and the One-Water approach (municipal drinking, storm & waste waters) recognises this via recovery of energy, nutrients and water for safe recycling back into our communities.   New treatment options based on resource-recovery offer an important element in enhancing community resilience to climate and demographic changes.  To aid in option selections, it is important to utilize system analysis tools based on life-cycle assessments, so as to minimize unintended consequences from new infrastructure, some of which will be in place for at least fifty years.  Our study focuses on the selection, evaluation and optimization of emerging municipal wastewater service options that can carry out energy and nutrient recovery, leading to a more sustainable wastewater treatment system within the urban water service system.

Brief Bio: Dr. Yang Liu is a professor in Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta. She is a Canada Research Chair in Future Water Services, an NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Sustainable Urban Water Development, and an elected college member of Royal Society of Canada. Dr. Liu’s research is centered in the general area of environmental biotechnology, with topics ranging from the basics of biofilm formation kinetics, granulation processes, microbial behaviour, and microbial community and functional dynamics under various environmental conditions, to their applications in engineering bioreactors for wastewater treatment and resource recovery. Her research activities contribute to decarbonizing communities and promote their resilience to climate and demographic changes within the circular economy. <Personal Page>

Prof. Chiyuan Miao
(Keynote Speaker)
Beijing Normal University, China

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speech Title: Sensitivity analysis-based automatic parameter calibration of the VIC model for streamflow simulations over China

Abstract: Model parameter calibration is a fundamentally important stage that must be completed before applying a model to address practical problems. In this study, we describe an automatic calibration framework that combines sensitivity analysis (SA) and an adaptive surrogate modeling based optimization (ASMO) algorithm. We use this framework to calibrate catchment-specific sensitive parameters for streamflow simulation in the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model with a 0.25° spatial resolution over ten major river basins of China from 1960 to 1979. We found that three parameters—the infiltration parameter (B) and two of the soil depth parameters (D1, D2)—are highly sensitive in most basins, while other parameter sensitivities are strongly related to the dynamic environment of the basin. Compared with directly calibrating the seven parameters recommended for the default calibration procedure, our framework not only reduced the computing time by two-thirds through opting out of insensitive parameters (type I error) but also improved the Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (NSE) for optimized results when it identified a missing sensitive parameter (type II error) in the case study river basins. Results show that the SA-based ASMO framework is an effective and efficient model-optimization technique for matching simulated streamflow with observations across China. The NSE for monthly streamflow ranged from 0.75 to 0.97 and from 0.71 to 0.97 during the validation and calibration periods, respectively. The calibrated parameters can be applied directly in streamflow simulations across China, and the proposed calibration framework holds important implications for relevant simulation studies in other regions.

Brief Bio: Dr. Chiyuan Miao a full professor at Beijing Normal University, China. His research interests mainly focus on the traditional Hydrological science and the emerging Global Climate Change science. Dr. Miao has devoted himself to seek answers to those fundamental questions: whether the current hydro-climatogical datasets such as precipitation and temperature data are reliable, how do hydro-climatological variables respond to global climate change, and what roles do human beings play in such hydrological changes? He has produced more than 140 peer-refereed international journal papers, and 12 rated as ESI highly cited (with a SCI-based H-index of 42). Dr. Miao has served as an Editor of AGU’s GeoHealth, Associate Editor of Earth’s Future, Weather and Climate Extremes, Climatic change, and Editorial Board Member of Science Bulletin, National Science Open, Climate Risk Management, Environmental Research Communications. In 2022, Dr. Miao was awarded with the “Piers J. Sellers Global Environmental Change Mid-Career Award” by AGU. <Personal Page>

 

University of Regina, Canada

Global Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability

Southern University of Science and Technology, China

Beijing Normal University, China

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong S.A.R, China

Hohai University, China

Sophia University, Japan

United States Environmental Protection Agency, USA

National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee, India

National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, ROC

University of Victoria, Canada

University of Guelph, Canada

University of Alberta, Canada

China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), China

University of Malaya, Malaysia

Prof. Yanfeng Zhang

Shanghai University of Engineering Science, China