AI for Operational Hydrology / Call for Challenges

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Young Hydrologic Society

As part of the upcoming the Open Seventeen (O17, http://openseventeen.org/) challenge, WMO HydroHub (the Global Hydrometry Support Facility of the World Meteorological Organization) is looking for the Hydrology Community to define challenges around the topic of “Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Operational Hydrology” to which students and early career scientists can submit solutions.

O17 is a challenge-based, online interactive coaching programme to help young global innovators connect and shape good ideas into viable social innovations projects for achieving the 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development at local, regional or global level.  O17 supports projects that enable grassroots public participation and citizen science through the use of open data and crowdsourcing.

There are two open calls per year in which 6-8 challenges are formulated by experts from UN agencies, International Organizations and NGOs, targeting one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Students and young scientists from all over the world are then asked to submit project proposals to solve these challenges. Selected candidates receive six weeks of mentoring to implement their projects under the guidance of the expert who defined the challenge. The most promising projects are further supported for their development, including internships and scholarships. The theme of the previous challenge was “Tackling plastic pollution”. The next theme is “Artificial Intelligence for the SDGs” and the WMO HydroHub has been given the chance to formulate challenges.

The proposed challenges should answer the question: “Is there one particular challenge in operational hydrology that you think should be studied or resolved by means of AI?”

If you are interested to mentor a group of AI innovators that work on your topic, propose a challenge from your work context or expertise. The deadline for submitting a proposal is 6 January 2020. The best project teams will be invited to present their results at the AI for Good Global Summit, 4-8 May 2020 in Geneva, Switzerland.

For more information and to submit a proposal visit: https://hydrohub.wmo.int/en/news-events/call-challenges-ai-operational-hydrology

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IAHS in Montréal, Canada – ECS events at IUGG 2019

Posted on November 12, 2019 by Young Hydrologic Society

A –Streams of Thought– contribution by Nilay Dogulu, Joris Eekhout, Svenja Fischer, Giovanny Mosquera, Michelle Newcomer, Jean Namugize.

Time flies by! Do you remember the last IAHS Scientific Assembly in 2017? It was July in South Africa’s lovely coastal city Port Elizabeth. Researchers all around the world gathered to share their work and discuss hydrology together. There were quite many interesting sessions, including those aimed at early career scientists. You can read this post by Tim and Nilay in YHS –Streams of Thought– Blog to refresh your memories of IAHS 2017, and download presentations from the ECS events. Please note that July 2017 marked a milestone in IAHS history since it was during the Bureau meetings held in Port Elizabeth that IAHS launched its Early Career Committee initiative. 

Two years later, hydrologists all around the world met in beautiful Montréal, Canada for the next IAHS conference organized as part of the 27th International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics General Assembly (IUGG 2019, 8-18 July 2019), including the five members of IAHS ECC (Joris, Svenja, Giova, Michelle, Jean and Nilay). We have been regularly meeting online since Nov 2018, yet we met in person for the first time in Montréal! (Note: The first IAHS ECC mandate officially came into force from July 2019  and will run until July 2021 when the next ECC will take over at the IAHS Scientific Assembly in Montpellier, France.)

The week of 9-14 July was full of IAHS sessions and activities. The programme included 29 scientific sessions and 5 joint symposia led by IAHS (and co-organized with other IUGG associations). There were, in total, 4000+ participants from more than 100 countries. We were not so much affected by the high summer temperatures in Québec – rooms of the conference venue were cold enough to keep our attention strong. If you couldn’t attend the IAHS conference, don’t worry. You can get a glimpse of the week thanks to live feed in the HEPEX Blog by Marie-Amélie Boucher and Maria-Helena Ramos.

The Early Career Committee complemented the IAHS scientific program with 5 workshops. Read on for a summary of each workshop, and some highlights from IAHS events. There are also tweets and photos!:)

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The first ever Early Career Day of IAHS ICSH in Nanjing, China

Posted on November 12, 2019 by Young Hydrologic Society

A –Streams of Thought– contribution by Svenja Fischer.

For the first time in history of the International Commission of Statistical Hydrology (ICSH, former STAHY) of the International Association of Hydrological sciences, the annual conference was started with one day dedicated to the early career scientists only. At the beautiful campus at Hohai University in Nanjing, China the local organizing committee of STAHY 2019, Prof. Yuanfang Chen and Prof. Binquan Li, together with the Early Career Committee Representative of ICSH, Svenja Fischer, invited well-known statistical hydrologists to give insights in the challenges of statistical hydrology. 28 participants from 8 different countries listened to two excellent talks and actively contributed to the following Q&A session. Continue reading →

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Hallway Conversations – Francesca Pianosi

Posted on October 18, 2019 by Young Hydrologic Society

A –Streams of Thought– contribution by Wouter Knoben (WK)pianosi

Francesca Pianosi is a senior lecturer at the University of Bristol. She currently holds a prestigious Early Career EPSRC “Living with Environmental Change” Fellowship and was awarded the EGU Arne Richter award for Outstanding Young Scientists in 2015. Her research focuses around uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, and water resources management. She is the lead developer of the SAFE Global Sensitivity Analysis toolbox (Matlab/R/Python: www.safetoolbox.info).

WK: Can you tell us a little about your background, your formal education?

I did an MSc in Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Milano and stayed there to do a PhD in Informatics Engineering. This is essentially the engineering version of computer science. The department had people working on a wide variety of topics but I was part of a small group inside it that applied mathematical theory to environmental problems (my PhD project focused on water resources modelling). There were three professors there working on atmospheric systems, population dynamics and water systems respectively, so we used to say “Air, Animals and Water are covered” (we missed Earth!). On the one hand it was very nice to be part of such a varied department, because I got exposed to many different topics and that is good for building confidence. On the other hand, I would sometimes end up in seminars about stabilizing space rockets during landing, which was not really directly useful for my work!

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Hallway Conversations – Serena Ceola

Posted on September 23, 2019 by Young Hydrologic Society

A contribution by Sina Khatami (SK)

BZ7T3427_EGU_Foto_Pfluegl_190410_SCSerena Ceola is a senior assistant professor at University of Bologna, Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering. At EGU 2019 General Assembly, Serena received the Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award of Hydrological Sciences Division for her outstanding contributions to the understanding of the interplay of river dynamics, fluvial ecology and human activities (link).

SK: Can you tell us a little about your background and education?

I was born in Padova, Italy, and studied environmental engineering at the University of Padova, from which I obtained a master’s degree in 2009. Since my bachelor’s studies, I was fascinated by hydrology: both my bachelor’s and master’s theses dealt with the availability of river discharge. Then, in 2009 I moved to Lausanne in Switzerland and I continued my studies with a PhD at the Laboratory of Ecohydrology of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). My PhD thesis focused on the implications of river discharge availability on river ecosystems (namely algae and macroinvertebrates). Since 2013, I have been based at the University of Bologna, Italy, and currently as an assistant professor. Now my main research project focuses on the relationship between river discharge availability and human activities, both at local and global scales.

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