IRTCES NEWS: On July 20, Prof. Michel A. Verbanck visited the IRTCES. Dr. Liu Cheng met him and briefed about the IRTCES and training and research projects undertaken by the IRTCES. Prof. Verbanck introduced Aqua Terra Program he is currently involved in and his research on carrying capacity of suspended sediment in heavy and fine sediment load rivers. Two sides also explored possibility of future cooperation. 

 
Prof. Dr. Michel Verbanck is a founding member of World Association for Sedimentation and Erosion Research (WASER) and he is currently Head of the Department of Water Pollution Control. He teaches Environmental Chemistry and Environmental Engineering at the Faculty of Applied Sciences. As early as 1990, Prof. Verbanck was asked by the IAHR and IAWQ Joint Committee on Urban Storm Drainage to co-ordinate the creation of a task group on sewer solids. In 1991, he was the organizer of the first international conference on this topic in Brussels. He was elected twice as chairman (1993 and 1995) of the task group, and is currently still member of the sewer systems and processes working group (SSPWG) he contributed to create as a continuing international research effort (http://www.sspwg.civil.auc.dk).

Prof. Verbanck regularly intervenes as a member of steering committee of international conferences and as a reviewer for leading journals in the field. He was recently appointed as chairman of the ‘Water quality’ task group of the International Commission for the protection of the Scheldt.