On February 17th, 2023, students from the Master's program Water Science and Engineering and Bachelor's program in Civil Engineering visited the Iffezheim Rhein power plant for a four-hour tour.

Under the expert guidance of EnBW, the students visited the automatic control room, the machine room in which the turbines and generators are installed, the fishway and the weir.

The tour was a success as the students learned about the state-of-the-art technology used to operate the power plant and the importance of protecting the environment and fish populations.

On 28th November, Mário Franca participated on a webinar on “How to get a job”, a pre-event from the 3rd IAHR Young Professionals Congress (https://www.iahr.org).

He made a short presentation “Job in academy. When what they want is what you need”, which is available under the link below.

On October 1st, 2022, our colleague Dr. Peter Oberle celebrates his 25th service anniversary.

He has headed the "Numerical Analysis in Hydraulic Engineering" department since 2005 and, with his expertise, is an important pillar of the institute.

We are pleased to have such a valuable colleague in our ranks, both personally and professionally. Dear Peter, congratulations and we look forward to more successful years!

KIT researchers and partners suspect that much more plastic is transported in flowing waters than previously assumed and are developing new modelling approaches.

Prof. Mário Franca gave the opening lecture “River engineering; alluring by complexity”at the colloquium of the BAW „Flussbauliche Herausforderungen an der Elbe im Wandel der Zeit“.

On September 23rd, 2022, Günther Kühn celebrated 40 (!) years of service. On this occasion, Mario Franca presented him with the certificate of thanks signed by Ministerpräsident Winfried Minister Kretschmann. The entire institute congratulates and is happy to have a colleague who is so valuable in human and professional terms in its ranks.

On July 14th, 17 participants from the IWG, the IfH and colleagues from the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology at the ETH Zürich met for a one-day workshop on river engineering.

In 5 technical talks and a tour of the hydraulic laboratories at the KIT, current issues and methods in river engineering were discussed and possible research cooperations were explored.

Wood is an integral part of a river ecosystem and can be transported during both small and large floods. To manage wood transport in Alpine rivers, rack structures have been installed to retain wood upstream of endangered settlements or infrastructures.

The seminar video is online now.

From June 19th - 24th the 39th IAHR World Congress “From Snow To Sea” will take place in Granada, Spain (IAHR 2022). The International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR), founded in 1935, is a worldwide independent organisation of engineers and water specialists working in fields related to the hydro-environmental sciences and their practical application.

Researchers from all over the world present their results to more than 1200 registered attendees.

Prof. Dr. Mário Franca, Dr. Daniel Valero (Simulation of a Transient Gravity Current – Comparison of Four RANS Eddy-Viscosity Turbulence Models), Wendy Gonzalez Otero (Numerical Modelling of the Suspended Sediment Transport in a Reservoir under the Influence of Wind and Temperature) and Tim Kerlin (Parameterization of Flow Resistance for the Hydrodynamic Numerical Simulation of Sheetflow) will represent the IWG with their contributions.

Today M.Sc. Katrin Trautwein and M.Sc. Christin Kannen presented the profession of an hydraulic engineer in an online seminar as part of Girlsday 2022. 6 girls at the age of 9-16 years could get an insight into the profession of a researcher and hydraulic engineer. Katrin presented the project KaWaTech in Vietnam and Christin reported about a research project on hydromorphological modelling of scour processes.

On 22 March, Mário Franca did a presentation with the title “Flood risk management didn’t age well“ by invitation of the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology of ETHZ, in Zurich. Based on an analysis of the unfortunate flood events occurred in July 2021 in Northwestern Germany, and considering the demands which post-Anthropocene will bring in terms of extreme weather events, Mario Franca reflected on which evolution is needed to better evaluate flood hazard.