EPFL is a top-ranked research and teaching institution located in Lausanne, Switzerland. EPFL is committed to innovative projects bringing fundamental and applied research together, thus driving innovation and technology transfer. EPFL has a unique organisation that stimulates interdisciplinary research and fosters partnerships with other institutions, with both theoretical and applied research being carried out. With more than 300 laboratories and research groups on campus, EPFL is one of most innovative and productive engineering and technology institutes in Europe. At the core of EPFL's mission, the Institute of Environmental Engineering (IIE) is specifically committed to study the interactions between human activities and the different environmental spheres such as water, air, climate, and ecosystems. For this reason, Earth Observation (EO) data and mathematical modelling are routinely used as tools for the development of environmental technologies and engineering solutions, as well as for the management of natural resources and the prevention of risks.
Principal Investigator:
Andrea Rinaldo is Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources, and Director of the Laboratory of Ecohydrology and the Institute of Environmental Engineering at EPFL. He is also at the Dipartimento di Ignegneria Civile e Ambientale, Università di Padova (Italy). He got his MSc in civil engineering summa cum laude from Università di Padova in 1978 and his PhD in Fluid Mechanics from Purdue University in 1983. His wide research interests include transport phenomena in the hydrological cycle, hydrogeomorphology, hydrologic controls of ecological processes, stochastic modelling of natural phenomena, networks in nature, scaling in ecosystems, mathematical epidemiology of waterborne diseases. He is author of more than 200 journal papers and a few scientific books. Among his distinctions, he received the Dalton Medal from EGU in 2005, the 4th Prince Sultan Abdulaziz International Water Prize in 2010 and an ERC Advanced Grant Fellowship in 2008. Among Academy memberships, he is foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, of the US National Academy of Engineering and the US National Academy of Sciences.
His role in Ecopotential is leader of task 6.1 “Design of EO-based monitoring methodologies”.