US, Spanish and Greek scientists win Prince Sultan water award

Four research teams from the United States and individuals from Spain and Greece were announced as winners of the 6th Award of the Prince Sultan International Prize for Water.
The winners were announced during a meeting of the Prize Council in Riyadh on October 12, with PSIPW Council chairman Prince Khaled Bin Sultan presiding.
For Creativity, the prize worth SR1 million was split between the team of Dr. Eric F Wood and Dr. Justin Sheffield of Princeton University and the GPS Reflections Group led by Dr. Kristine M. Larson of University of Colorado, Boulder, which included Professor Eric Small (University of Colorado), Dr. Valery Zavorotny (NOAA) and Dr. John Braun of (UCAR).
The first team was awarded for inventing a sophisticated system for high-accuracy drought predictions at both regional and continental levels, while the other team was recognized for developing a new low-cost technique to measure soil moisture, snow depth, and water content.
Four individual researchers won prizes of SR500,000 each for their groundbreaking research regarding groundwater and its salinity in semi-arid areas, as well as detoxification process and methods of operating water resources systems.
The Surface Water Prize went to Dr. Larry Mays (Arizona State University) for his comprehensive work in surface water hydrology and water resources engineering.
Dr. Jesús Carrera Ramirez (Institute for Environmental Assessment and Water Research in Barcelona, Spain, won the Groundwater Prize “for his decisive contributions to the development of mathematical hydrogeology and transport modeling in groundwater systems.”
Bagging the Alternative Water Resources Prize was Dr. Polycarpos Falaras (National Center for Scientific Research, Athens, Greece), coordinator of the European Union’s CLEANWATER Project, for an “innovative and efficient water detoxification technology exploiting solar energy and nano-engineered titania photocatalysts in combination with nanofiltration membranes for the destruction of extremely hazardous toxins and pollutants in natural waters and water supplies.”
The Water Management & Protection Prize went to Dr. William W-G. Yeh (University of California, Los Angeles), “for developing of optimization models to plan, manage and operate large-scale water resources systems throughout the world.”
Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz will sponsor the award ceremony for the Prince Sultan International Prize for Water in the first week of December 2015. The ceremony will be held in conjunction with the launch of the Sixth International Conference on Water Resources and Arid Environments, organized by the award authority, King Saud University and the Ministry of Water and Electricity.
Some 186 candidates from 47 countries competed for the award, including distinguished scientists and representatives of highly ranked international universities and scientific institutions worldwide.

Online: http://www.psipw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=353:pr...