Current and future challenges of Experimental Methods and Instrumentation

Jun 11, 2021

Current and future challenges of Experimental Methods and Instrumentation

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The activity of Experimental Methods and Instrumentation Committee is transversal to most areas of IAHR. All scientists, practitioners or managers working in the water sector directly or indirectly use data acquired with instruments and processed with mathematical and statistical methods and techniques. Technological advances and societal awareness have brought about changes in the way we acquire knowledge through experiments and observations. This session provides an open forum where IAHR and, in particular, members of Committee on Experimental Methods and Instrumentation (EMI) discuss the future of Instrumentation and Experimental Methods. All themes are welcome, including (but not restricted to): social impacts related to the nexus affordability/reliability of instrumentation; scientific issues such as the future development of data science leading to building, curating and make sense of global databases, merging of data, numerically produced or acquired from nature, data assimilation, data-driven models employing AI and synthetic data; management or political issues such as data ownership, especially in trans-boundary systems, in the drinking water or wastewater sectors or other industries.

All IAHR members are invited to send their contributions for the debate using the comment box below or the email ruimferreira@tecnico.ulisboa.pt until the 25th June.

All IAHR members are invited to participate live on the debate on the 7th June 10:00 CET

The session will be stirred by the leadership team of EMI and by the four guests below.

Comment box

Please click here (jumping out of the IAHR domain) to let us know what topics you would like to hear in the live discussion before 25 June.

We have proposed some:

What will we be measuring in 10 years? ‘Same old’ or are we expanding the field?
How will we be measuring? What new technologies look more promising?
How accessible will new instruments be? Will we obtain big results with small lab or field budgets? Will we be sharing instruments and software?
How data science and big data will affect our willingness and need to measure and to monitor?
And citizens? what is the role of citizen science beyond citizens-as-sensors?
Will measurement and computation converge into one single meaning-production activity? OK, no, but how will this interaction evolve?
And given the heavy reliance of some instruments and techniques on theoretical models will we be able to make a clear-cut distinction of measurement and computation?

Please tell us what themes, on the above list or not, that you would like to discuss in the session.

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