Environmental fluid mechanics at iEMSs conferences (2002-2014)

Abstract

Environmental Sciences encompass issues such as climate change, conservation, biodiversity, water quality, groundwater contamination, soil contamination, use of natural resources, waste management, sustainable development, disaster reduction, air pollution, and noise pollution. Within this broad and inherently interdisciplinary field, Environmental Fluid Mechanics (EFM) is the scientific study of naturally occurring fluid flows of air and water on our planet Earth, especially of those flows that affect the environmental quality of air and water, with scales of relevance, which are ranged (i) spatially from millimetres to kilometres, and (ii) temporally from seconds to years. The paper presents a comprehensive review of the EFM sessions organized within the biennial iEMSs conferences from 2002 to 2014. After a short analysis the evolution over the time of the number and the type of paper therein presented, the scientific impact of those sessions through research papers published in ISI journals and through other activities is addressed. Moreover, relevant theoretical, modelling, software and experimental issues raised from EFM sessions are presented. Finally, the paper discusses how EFM could be integrated with the broader area of environmental sciences and their modelling/software aspects.