Peer Review Panel
The Peer Review Panel ensures quality of the research work in the Integrated Project AquaTerra at the scientific and stakeholder level. It judges the scientific quality of the work executed, recommends on publication and scientific dissemination, and identifies complementarities with scientific work outside this Integrated Project and linkings to national and international research programmes.
Senior Scientists
End-Users
Senior Scientists
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Winfried Blum
Prof. Dr. Winfried Blum studied at universities in Germany and France (1965 M.Sc. Forestry; 1968 PhD Natural Sciences; 1971 Habilitation Soil Science). From 1972-74 he worked as Assoc. Prof. for soil science and lecturer for clay mineralogy at the University of Freiburg/Germany. 1975-79 he was Visiting Professor and Director of a University Partnership Project at the State University of Paraná in Curitiba/Brazil. Since 1979 he holds a position as full Professor of Soil Science and Head of the Institute of Soil Research at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna/Austria.
Former activities include: Chairman of the Commission of Soil Protection at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg/France (1989-1994). – Secretary-General of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) (1990-2002). Member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen/Denmark (1994-2002). Member of the Executive Board, of the Committee on Scientific Planning and Review (CSPR) and Chairman of the Standing Committee "Sciences for Food Security" of the International Council for Science (ICSU), Paris/France (1996-2002).
He published more than 350 scientific papers in 8 languages in the areas of soil chemistry and mineralogy, sustainable land use and environmental protection. He is co-editor or member of editorial boards of 13 scientific journals.
Bjørn Jensen
Bjørn Jensen is a former Assistant Professor at the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, and former Research Director at DHI Water & Environment. He is currently holding a position as Director, Water management, in the Deloitte Sustainable Emerging Markets group in Copenhagen. Bjørn Jensen is a senior executive with professional experience within a number of areas such as soil and groundwater pollution and remediation, water quality, environmental microbiology, integrated water resources management, water supply and sanitation, etc.
Bjørn Jensen has held a number of national and international organisational posts and he has an extensive network covering European research institutions, European Commission, EPAs and private companies in the water and environment sector. He has authored or co-authored about 50 peer-reviewed journal papers and book or conference contributions.
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David Lerner
David Lerner is Professor of Environmental Engineering and leader of the Groundwater Protection and Restoration Group (GPRG) at the University of Sheffield. This is a multi-disciplinary grouping of ~30 researchers with a national and international reputation for research on groundwater pollution. David Lerner has a long record of successful research projects spanning the scales from catchments to laboratory models, and ranging from water resources to pollution and clean-up. Many of these have focused on urban and industrial problems, such as the first UK city-wide survey of organic pollution, showing how ubiquitous chlorinated solvent pollution is. The EU-funded Coventry Groundwater Investigation considered the sources and movement of chlorinated solvents in a multi-layered, fractured rock environment. At plume scale, the multi-institution ‘4 Ashes’ project on natural attenuation successfully linked laboratory process studies, field investigation and numerical modelling, and has lead to a new hypothesis for the size of naturally attenuating plumes which is being tested in CORONA, an EU project which he leads. At lab-scale, new visualisation techniques have shown the role of transverse dispersion in controlling the length of biodegrading plumes. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, co- editor of the leading journal in his field, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, vice- chair of the Technology and Research Group of CL:AIRE, and was awarded a DSc by the University of Birmingham in 2003 for his body of work on "Urban and industrial impacts on groundwater".
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Iren Varsanyi
Iren Varsanyi is a senior researcher at the Department of Mineralogy, Geochemistry and Petrology, University of Szeged. After graduation in 1972 as a chemist at the University of Szeged she worked on diagenesis of clay minerals at the Hungarian Oil Drilling Company. Further working experience was gained in the earthenware industry. Since 1980 she has been dealing with hydrogeochemistry. The DSc. thesis (2003) summarised the chemical evolution of groundwater and formation water in the central part of the Pannonian Basin. Since 2000 she has been participating in the NATO Science for Peace Program as a consultant of an environmental project.
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Sjoerd van der Zee
Prof. Dr. Sjoerd van der Zee is General Director of Wageningen Institute of Environment and Climate Research WIMEK (since 2003) and president of the Dutch Soil Science Society (2001-2004). From 2000-03 he was Director of Research (2000-2003) of the Graduate Research School SENSE for the Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment, involving 9 Dutch universities. The GUS prize for best PhD thesis of Wageningen University was awarded to his group in 1988 & 1989. He was visiting professor at several universities in Europe, S. America, and Asia for short duration, and at Norwegian Agricultural University, Aas, Norway from 1992-1999. He is active as keynote speaker at numerous conferences, author/co-author of 100+ international reviewed publications, promotor of 15+ PhD students, and reviewer for several national research organisations, and soil, water, and ecological journals. He is member of national and international committees, review panels, and conference advisory boards.
His professional interests focus on: Reactive solute transport in porous media, stochastic modeling of flow and transport in heterogeneous natural porous media, integrated physical, chemical and biological research for soil and ground water, soil salinity and re-use of waste water, upscaling of physical, chemical and biological research from laboratory to field, trace element bioavailability for crops, vegetations, and soil dwelling organisms.
End-Users
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Bob Harris
Bob Harris has spent 33 years in the UK water and environment sectors within government agencies at local, regional and national levels. Early in his career he undertook applied research allied to the development of guidance and policies in relation to groundwater management and associated urban and rural land use. He worked on inter alia: diffuse nutrient pollution from agricultural land use, demonstrating the unsustainability of certain intensive agricultural practices on water quality and the economic benefits of targeted land use change; point source pollution risks from waste disposal and contaminated land and; developed the first groundwater protection policy for England and Wales. He built and headed up the Environment Agency’s National Groundwater & Contaminated Land Centre for 5 years before becoming Head of Ecosystems Science in the Agency. His group provides the scientific underpinning for policies and regulation, relating to the European Water Framework Directive and ultimately Integrated River Basin Management, through an integrated catchment science approach. Bob is active internationally in collaborative projects and policy/science networks including two European Research Area Networks (ERA-Nets). He is a member of various Research Council programme advisory committees, including Lowland Catchment Research (LOCAR) and Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU), a Council Member for the Foundation for Water Research and a visiting Professor in Catchment Science at Sheffield University.
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Igor Liska
Igor Liska holds a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, M.Sc. in physical chemistry. He is Technical Expert for Water Quality and Water Management at the Permanent Secretariat of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River. Current activities focus on support, co-ordination and advice to teams of technical experts (Expert Groups) in field of water and environment (specific areas of advisory – water quality monitoring and assessment, accident prevention and control, hydrological issues and flood prevention and protection). His further professional activities include:
- Consultations and liaison with national and international authorities
- Consultations and liaison with other international river commissions
- Regular technical report writing in the field of water and environment
- Promoting information exchange in the Danube River Basin
- Management of international projects
In the recent years he was involved in project management of:
- Joint Danube Survey 2001-2002: Scientific monitoring expedition on the Danube (2.580 km of the river monitored using a research vessel)
- Investigation of the Tisa River, 2001-2002: Project Coordinator
He is author or co-author of more than 80 scientific papers and other contributions, referee to international scientific journals (Journal of AOAC International, Journal of Chromatography, Analyst, Journal of High Resolution Chromatography, Analytica Chemica Acta, Chemosphere).
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Joop Vegter
Joop Vegter holds a Ph.D. in Biology. From1978-1982 he has been assistant professor in animal ecology at the Free University Amsterdam. In 1983 he took up a position at the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment as Policy Staff Member of the Soil and Groundwater Department. He has been involved in the development of general soil protection policies, soil protection research programming and the setting of soil quality reference values. His current position (since 1988) is general secretary of the Technical Soil Protection Committee (TCB). The TCB is an independent committee based on the Dutch Soil protection act. The committee makes recommendations on the technical and scientific aspects of soil protection, including the protection of groundwater and sediments.
Joop Vegter has been involved in many international activities in the field of soil protection and contaminated land management. He was a member of the steering group of the EU concerted action CARACAS on contaminated land risk assessment and was scientific chairman of the EU concerted action CLARINET on contaminated land management. He is a member of Common Forum, an international network of soil policy experts and advisors in the field of contaminated land, and currently chairs the Technical working group on soil contamination in the EU thematic soil strategy.
Paola Viana
Paola Viana is head of the monitoring programmes at the Portuguese Instituto de Ambiente (Ministerio das Cidades, Ordenamiento Territorio e Ambiente). She has an academic degree in Chemical Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico (Technical University of Lisbon). Her main scientific and professional activities include:
- The development of analytical methodologies of organic micropollutants in the environment (water, sediments, soils, air, contaminated sites).
- Participation in monitoring programs involving surface waters, groundwater, coastal waters, sediments, biota.
- Identification and evaluation of priority and “new” contaminants. Monitoring of endocrine disrupters in surface waters and sediments of urban, agricultural and industrial origin.
- Laboratory Technical Auditor (EN ISO/CEI 17025) of the Portuguese Institute for Quality (IPQ).
- Portuguese Delegate of the Working Group on Substances and Point and diffuse Sources (SPDS) of the OSPAR Convention (Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic).
- Participation in the EU project: WARP “Pesticides in Water. Feasibility study”.