Palermo 2018

Minutes Group Meeting of the International Working Group on Data and Models (IWGDM)


  • Outgoing Chair: David McCarthy (Monash)
  • Incoming Chair: Manfred Kleidorfer (Uni Innsbruck)
  • Secretary: Joao Paulo Leitao (EAWAG)
  • Young scientist representative: Ico Broekhuizen (Luleå Tekniska Universitet)

https://sites.google.com/view/iwgdm/


Part 1:25 Sept 2018 9:00 – 10:00 am

1. UDM 2021

The group received two applications to organize the Urban Drainage Modelling Conference in 2021 , from

  • School of Environment, Tsinghua University, China (represented by Siyu Zeng)
  • Stevens Institute of Technology, USA (represented by Elizabeth Fassman Beck and Scott Struck)

A vote, which is open to all participants decides that the next UDM will be organized by Stevens Institute of Technology (42 vs 33 votes). The result is announced during closing ceremony of UDM 2018


Part 2: 26 Sept 2018 1:45 – 2:30 am

2. Public consultation on urban waste water treatment directive

Simon Tait reports about a public consultation on the urban wastewater directive by the European commission (https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/public-consultation-evaluation-urban-waste-water-treatment-directive) and the review of a Position Paper of the Working group Urban Water Pollution of the WSSTP. Simon will contact interested people to collect feedback, that is reported to the European Comission


3. Finances

The group has bit of a budget which could be used to support activities e.g. for young scientists. Interested people can contact Manfred


4. Upcoming activities

The group plans to organize a row of workshops (next opportunity Novatech 2019). Ideas:

  • Benchmark of flood models (share of common dataset and comparison of results) – Ana Deletic and Behzad Jamali
  • Discussion which model complexity fits which modelling purpose – Luca Vezzaro
  • Influence of the modeller on the results – Ben Hodges


5. Format of the UDM

Members of the group express their fear that with increasing number of participants the UDM conference loses its character as a specialist conference with enough room for discussions. The next organizers should be encouraged to give a clear focus in the conference themes on models and data, which is used for modelling. Further there is the wish for longer presentations and more time for discussions.


6. New chair and secretary

Dr. Joao Paulo Leitao(EAWAG) becomes new secretary of the working group. Manfred Kleidorfer (Uni Innsbruck) becomes new chair.

Thanks to David McCarthy for the last 3 years as chair


Things that happened outside the group meeting

7. Best young scientist award 2018

Based on reviewer feedback and internal evaluation Santiago Sandoval got the 1st price, Behzad Jamali is 2nd and Antonio M. Moreno Rodenas 3rd


8. Young scientist representative

Inspired by the JCUD’s idea to involve more young scientist, the group (well actually it was Manfred who had the idea after the group meeting and thus did not ask you – sorry for that) decided to have a third position next to chair and secretary for a young scientist (<35) who is involved in decisions and discussions. For the first time Ico Broekhuizen (Luleå Tekniska Universitet), who volunteered during UDM to help with the website is that person. The next time, most probably at UDM 2021 we will vote for this position. The main idea is to enable people to get deeper involved without asking for a full commitment for 6 years.