Upcoming Events

[William Mong Distinguished Lecture] The past, present and future of Land Surface Modeling: A Personal Perspective

Speaker:  Professor Xu Liang, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Abstract:

It has been thirty years since we published the Generation 2B land surface model (LSM), VIC (Liang et al., 1994). Since then, advancements in ecology and biology have significantly enhanced our understanding of key ecological, biological, and physiological processes, as well as their interactions with physical and hydrological processes. These developments have opened new pathways to study ecosystem responses to atmospheric conditions through water, energy, and carbon cycling in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum.  

In this talk, I will reflect on the evolution of modern LSMs and their current state-of-the-art. Incorporating insights from plant physiology has improved the representation of water, energy, carbon, and nitrogen interactions.  However, it has also increased model complexity, often introducing unconstrained free variables or parameters that degrade model performance.

I will present a two-fold approach to mitigating the equifinality problem. As our modeling goals become more ambitious, new challenges are emerging, including cross-disciplinary model integration and scaling models across platforms for broader applications. Addressing these challenges requires a holistic, collaborative approach.

To support this shift, we must embrace a new paradigm. We have been developing Cyberwater, a cyberinfrastructure platform that unites data and models to facilitate exploration, evaluation, model coupling, and collaboration. After five years of development, CyberWater aims to enable seamless collaboration for scientists and engineers – from small to large scales – to achieve two-way open model coupling across platforms with minimal or no programming, and to support model parameter calibration and data assimilation.

Language: English

All members of the HKU community and the general public are welcome to join. Seats for on-site participants are limited.

For more details: https://engg.hku.hk/News-Events/Details/id/8458

HKAE TechTalk – Transforming Wastewater into Green Hydrogen: An Option to Produce the Fuel of the Future in HK?

Speaker:  Professor Irene Lo, Chair Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, HKUST

Abstract:

Conventional wastewater treatment facilities face significant challenges such as high carbon emissions and energy consumption. Our research team developed a low-carbon-emission photoelectrochemical (PEC) system for the treatment of saline wastewater, coupled with green hydrogen (H₂) generation. The PEC system demonstrates exceptional performance in treating saline sewage, effectively meeting Hong Kong discharge standards for chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia-N, and E. coli within 40 minutes at 2 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) when treating simulated saline sewage. When applied to real saline sewage (sampled from Stonecutters Island Sewage Treatment Works in Hong Kong), which has a more complex composition and higher turbidity, the PEC system still meets the discharge standards within 2 hours of PEC treatment. Additionally, we demonstrate the scalability of the PEC system from batch to a large-scale continuous flow reactor, and it can generate 18.13 mol/m³ of green H₂ (equivalent to 0.92 kWh/m³ of electricity). This innovative technology results in significant reductions of 98% in scope 1 emissions (direct GHG emissions) and 97% in total carbon emissions compared to conventional wastewater treatment plants, illustrating its excellent environmental benefits and enormous practical potential.

Language: English
Mode: Mixed

All members of the HKU members and the general public are welcome to join. Seats for on-site participants are limited.

For more details: https://innowings.engg.hku.hk/greenhydrogen/