The first edition of the International Conference
„ECOIMPULS 2012- Environmental Research and
Technology” plans to open a conference series
dedicated exclusively environmental issues. The
scientific topics are devoted to the on-going research on
environmental topics regarding: „Environment – a
political, economic and social responsibility”,
„Water in a changing world”, „ZERO – waste cities”
and „ Energy – beyond the conventional”.
This scientific event aims to bring together
professionals, academics, scientists, specialists in
technology and management as well as students from
the environmental research and technology area,
providing a forum for sharing experiences and new
ideas, to support the promotion and dissemination of the
new scientific results at international and national level
in the environmental field. At the same time, this event
encouraged practitioners and specialists in the field of
water research and technology to add a more practicaloriented
approach to the conference sessions.
The event was initiated by the AQUADEMICA
Romanian-German Foundation and AQUATIM SA- the
regional water and wastewater operator and organized
together with “Politehnica” University of Timisoara and
“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi.
This first edition of the conference marked the
celebration of 100 years of operation for the wastewater
treatment plant from Timisoara, which was designed
and built by Stan Vidrighin, and was the first facility of
this kind in Romania. The construction works
commenced in 1909 and the plant was commissioned in
1912, with a nominal flow of 570 l/s. At that time, the
plant was provided only with mechanical treatment
facilites.
For that period and but also with the
modernisation brought by the last decaded this plant is
an outstanding engineering achievement which
benefited of a remarkable project management. With
this conference occasion a series of informational and
cultural events were organized on the premises of the
AQUATIM Wastewater Treatment Plant. This special
event at its first edition highlighted the water topic
within the framework of conference aim and topics,
through plenary, oral and poster presentations.
ECOIMPULS 2012 Environmental Research
and Technology International Conference brought at
the Regional Business Center Timisoara about 400
participants from universities, research institutes, policy
makers, governmental and non-governmental
organizations and exhibitors from 5 countries (Romania,
Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Republic of
Moldova). With the great experience and reputation of
the plennary, key note and oral presentation speakers, a
high scientific level of ECOIMPULS 2012 conference
was assured, which offers a very good start for further
editions.
The Chair persons of ECOIMPULS 2012
international conference were: Dr. eng. Ilie VLAICU
(Romania), eng. Peter KÖSTNER (Germany) and
Drd.eng. Monica ISACU (Romania).
Three Plenary speakers brought their
contribution in relation with water issue to this event.
Thus, Prof. Dr. eng. Anton ANTON, Technical
University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Romania
talked about „Innovation and research in water
industry” Georg RIEDL, Major of Pfarrkirchen,
Germany highlighted „Importance of sustainable water
economy for communities”.
Editorial/Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 12 (2013), 5, 853-856
854
Prof. Dr. Eng. Carmen TEODOSIU, from The
“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi,
Romania presented the keynote lecture „Water use
cycle and instruments for environmental and human
impacts and risk assessment”.
The well-known specialits who are
representative for each topic gave a great contribution
to the conference scientific quality in their quality of
invited speakers. Eng. Stefan Girod from German
Water Partnership, Germany presented water
innovative solutions „Made in Germany” and eng.
Robert Schmidt from Wastewater Department within
the City Hall of München, Germany highlighted the
need for qualified environmental specialists in the
field of wastewater management. Prof. dr. Winfried
Schmidt from Westfälische/University of Applied
Science, Gelsenkirchen, German Membrane Society,
Münster reported about new findings for waste water
treatment with membrane bioreactors and Dr. eng.
Ioana Popescu from UNESCO-IHE Delft, The
Netherlands presented „XBeach sediment transport
software for fluvial environments”.
The most important tools for drinking water
management were discussed by Prof. dr. Wolfgang
Günthert from University of the Federal Army Forces
and eng. Heino Jahn from Waste Management
Department of the München city who shared the
German experience in relation to the conversion of a
plan dedicated to the separate capture of valuable
materials in München. The oral presentations and
poster sessions within ECOIMPULS 2012 conference
comprise the recent research and technological results
in the fields of: Environment–a political, economic
and social responsibility; Water – from vision to
challenge; Drinking water management; Wastewater
management; Water – a social responsibility; Waste
Environmental Research And Technology Eco Impuls 2012
855
– from vision to challenge; Waste management;
waste – a recoverable source; Energy – from vision
to challenge; Energy efficiency; Water and waste as
energy sources.
Thus, at this first ECOIMPULS international
conference edition, 106 papers were presented, and
the abstracts were published in the ECOIMPULS
2012 Book of Abstracts. 52 full manuscripts were
submitted for publication in the Environmental
Engineering and Management Journal, EEMJ
(http://omicron.ch.tuiasi.ro/EEMJ/), an international
ISI Web of Science ranked journal with an impact
factor IF of 1.117, and after a peer review process 26
manuscripts were accepted for publication.
We consider that ECOIMPULS 2012 was a
successful conference and we would like to continue it
as an annual conference so as to reach a tradition.
Thus, we are looking forward to scientists’ and
professionals’ new contributions for the second
Edition of the International Conference
„ECOIMPULS- Environmental Research and
Technology”, which will be held in 2013 in
Timisoara, Romania.