Inaugural NG Wright

Engineering, Educating, Empowering…

Nigel Wright

Einstein

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

There is a tide in the affairs of men.Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeIs bound in shallows and in miseries.On such a full sea are we now afloat,And we must take the current when it serves,Or lose our ventures.

Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, 1623.

'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.‘

Harold Pinter, on receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, 2005

What have I learnt from the Dutch?

• English

• Dutch English

• History

Lisa Jardine

• “Going Dutch”

• “How England Plundered Holland’s Glory

Simon Schama ... the low, gull-swept

estuary, the marriage bed of salt and fresh water, stretching as far as I could see from my northern Essex bank...

Landscape and memory

The Gambia

Landscape and Culture

• The Earth as an indestructible machine.

• No longer valid, but we will continue to use our natural environment.

Engineering?

• What is an engineer?– Engines?– Ingenious?

• How should we promote engineering?

BBC: “Clarkson backs Brunel as top Briton”

Hydraulic Engineering

• IHE in 1957 – Institute for Hydraulic Engineering

• Past engineering has sometimes given us a bad name in river management.

• We should not be threatened by such criticism…

• …but rise to new challenges.

Engineering

“the application of science to the needs of humanity”

This role continues, but the challenges are more diverse.

Challenges?

• Climate change.

Charles Darwin

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. “

Challenges?

• Climate change.

• Stakeholder involvement.

• Sustainability and impact assessment.

• Multi-disciplinarity.

Research

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

Einstein

Research

• Fundamental vs. Applied?

Modelling

“All models are wrong”

Beven, 2008

“a formal environmental model can only ever be an approximation to the perceptual model of the complex processes governing the response to some forcing”

Beven, 2002

“All models are wrong, some are

useful”

George Box

Challenges to modelling

• Risk-based approaches require multiple runs.

Risk-based analysis

• A system-wide analysis needs an efficient model, not the most accurate one.

• Not necessarily a full solution of the momentum equation.

Challenges to modelling

• Risk-based approaches require multiple runs.

• Uncertainty must be acknowledged…

“Ignorance is bliss: or seven reasons not to use uncertainty analysis”

Pappenberger & Beven, 2006.

• My model has no uncertainty.

• Decision-makers do not understand uncertainty.

Challenges to modelling

• Risk-based approaches require multiple runs.

• Uncertainty must be acknowledged…

• …and also needs multiple runs.

High-performance computing

Carlisle

Over 1 million cells

Innovations in numerical methods

• Modelling buildings.

• Model integration.

• Source terms.

Source terms

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Come gather 'round peopleWherever you roam

And admit that the watersAround you have grown

And accept it that soonYou'll be drenched to the bone.

And accept it that soonYou'll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to youIs worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin'.

Flooding

• Floods can bring benefits.• Floods affect the poor most.• Emerging economies are particularly

vulnerable.

• Flood risk management has replaced flood defence.

Risk = Probability X Consequence

Research lines

• Real-time flood forecasting.

• Flood vulnerability indices.

• Modelling in urban areas.

• Flood resilience.

The Delta Commission

• Defence is not the only option.

• Resilient structures.

• Spatial planning.

Morphology

• Bank erosion/accretion.

• Interaction of morphology and vegetation.

Sustainability and Impact Assessment

• Assessment techniques

• Sustainable use of water in river basins:– Power generation, environmental flow, etc.

• Modelling to support Environmental Flow Assessment.

Water-Energy Nexus

• Low-head hydropower

• Impact assessment

• Reservoir sedimentation

The Team

Alessandra CrosatoLindsay BeeversMicha Werner

Educating?

• Focus on research excellence should not cause us to forgot our role in education.

The effectiveness of teaching

5 %

10 %

Lecture

Reading

Audio-visual

Demonstration

Discussion group

Practical exercise

Teaching others

Average retention

20 %

30 %

50 %

75 %

80 %

Bales PyramidErik de Graaf, 1996.

Educating engineers

The profession in which knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to use the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of humanity.

Competences are as important as contents.

What sort of engineer do we wish to produce?

• We must continually evaluate ourselves by:– Student feedback.– Self-reflection.– Peer review.– Continuing professional development.

Teaching at UNESCO-IHE

• I am not an expert on pedagogy or innovation in education.

• I have experienced teaching from both sides in several institutions.

• I have seen what works for others and what works for me.

How should we innovate in higher education?

• Stimulate and facilitate staff, but not dictate.

• Create an environment that motivates and rewards.

• Recruit and retain entrepreneurial staff.

Empowering?

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Julius Caesar, (1, ii, 140-141), Shakespeare.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery;None but ourselves can free our minds.Redemption Song, Bob Marley, 1980.

• Our students must leave with the confidence to be lifelong learners.

• Their skills as researchers should continue after the knowledge we gave them is outdated.

• Enhancing opportunities in life through education should be open to all.

John de Mol?

• The most certain route to a fulfilling career is through education not Big Brother!

Thanks