The Council of the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) met in Riyadh on Thursday, 6 June 2024 to deliberate on the recommendations of the international referees for its 11th Award (2024). Under the chairmanship of Dr. Badran Al-Omar, and under the direction of PSIPW President HRH Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdulaziz, the Council approved the winners for the current award.
The Council of the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) met in Riyadh on Thursday, 6 June 2024 to deliberate on the recommendations of the international referees for its 11th Award (2024). Under the chairmanship of Dr. Badran Al-Omar, and under the direction of PSIPW President HRH Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdulaziz, the Council approved the winners for the current award.
The 11th Award winners will be formally announced later this month under the Space and Water Agenda of the 68th Session of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS).
The 11th Awards Ceremony will be held near the end of the year.
PSIPW is a leading, global scientific award focusing on cutting-edge innovation in water research. It gives recognition to scientists, researchers and inventors around the world for pioneering work that addresses the problem of water scarcity in creative and effective ways.
To this end, PSIPW offer a suite of five prizes every two years, covering the entire water research landscape.
Nominations are currently open for the 12th Award (2026). Nominations can be made online for all five prizes directly through the PSIPW website: www.psipw.org
Leading international scientists with a diversity of backgrounds -- including ecohydrology, chemistry, engineering, and environmental science, as well as hydrology -- won the five prizes for a wide variety of relevant, groundbreaking solutions that promise to help provide needed drinking water to the world's people. The winners hail from institutions in China, the Czech Republic, Italy, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Creativity Prize: The team of Maria Cristina Rulli (Polytechnic of Milan, Italy) and Paolo D’Odorico (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
They spearheaded novel analyses of the water-energy-food nexus, describing how numerous, complex factors interact, providing managers and policymakers better ways to be stewards of freshwater in a changing, globalised world.
Creativity Prize: The team of Zhiguo He (Zhejiang University, China)
The team is awarded for developing working, versatile soft robots with unprecedented manoeuvrability that have the capacity for numerous underwater research and monitoring applications.
Team members include: Pengcheng Jiao and Yang Yang.
Surface Water Prize: Qiuhua Liang (Loughborough University, UK) and his team
The team is awarded for developing pioneering, open-source, multi-GPU hydrodynamic models to support real-time flood forecasting at high temporal-spatial resolutions.
Team members include: Huili Chen, Xiaodong Ming, Xilin Xia, Yan Xiong and Jiaheng Zhao.
Groundwater Prize: Chunmiao Zheng (Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, China) and his team
The team is awarded for developing powerful tools to understand groundwater processes in ecohydrologic systems under diverse hydrological and climatic conditions, taking into account various environmental and socioeconomic factors, which can be employed by water managers locally and nationally.
Team members include: Yingying Yao and Erhu Du.
Alternative Water Resources Prize: Virender K. Sharma (Texas A&M University, USA) and his team
The team is awarded for pioneering techniques using activated ferrate in advanced oxidative processes to effectively remove antibiotics and pharmaceuticals from wastewater. These processes work at high, and even enhanced, efficiency in water containing commonly occurring natural organic matter that often inhibit the effectiveness of oxidative processes in removing micropollutants.
Team members include: Ching-Hua Huang, Chetan Jinadatha and Radek Zbořil.
Water Management & Protection Prize: Joseph Hun-wei Lee (Macau University of Science and Technology, China)
He is awarded for developing unique and highly effective hydro-environmental modelling systems for the sustainable water management of smart cites.