2021

Civil engineer Lukas Ambühl is developing a tool that he can use to simulate the transport system of any town or city. Artificial intelligence allows for a planning approach that keeps everyone rolling. ETH Foundation just published a portrait of the Pioneer Fellow and spin-off founder.

An interdisciplinary research team including scientists from the Institute of Environmental Engineering has revealed that the impact of plastics on climate and health is greater than originally thought due to the increased use of coal for process heat, electricity and as a raw material in production.  

The ETH Entrepreneur Club and the ETH AI Center recently launched the "Dandelion Entrepreneurship Award". The new award recognizes ETH professors who promote and facilitate talented people to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Nominations were made in the departments by students, doctoral candidates and postdoc researchers. D-BAUG professor Ueli Angst is among the first winners. Congratulations!

Every two years, the administrative and technical staff at D-BAUG gather for their general assembly – after all the covid-related restrictions, this year’s assembly felt all the more special as it could take place as a physical meeting in the Bauhalle! Another highlight was the visit of guest speaker Julia Dannath, the new Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership at ETH Zurich.

Every year, the student association of ETH Zurich recognizes particularly dedicated and inspiring lecturers with a "Golden Owl". At D-BAUG, the teaching award 2021 goes to Daniel Hall, Chair of Innovative and Industrial Construction. Congratulations!

A flood causes stress for organisms living in a watercourse. Their survival depends on factors such as whether there are refuge habitats to which they can retreat. Researchers from the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology and Eawag studied how river widening as part of restoration measures improves potential refugia availability. They showed that refugia provision and thereby the protection of biodiversity depends crucially on the supply of bedload.

This fall, the programme of Treffpunkt Science City revolves around the theme "Rich and poor — how inequality arises and how we overcome it". D-BAUG will be present with four contributions from the field of civil engineering. Registration for the free educational programme starts on November 15 and 21 respectively (only in German).

D-BAUG has modernised geomatics studies at Master’s degree level. Starting in autumn 2022, the new programme will have an even stronger focus on more flexible, project-based, research-oriented and interdisciplinary learning and teaching.

Despite comparatively favorable weather conditions, Swiss glaciers have lost about 400 million tons of ice during the past 12 months – almost 1% of the remaining glacier volume. This was recently reported by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring network GLAMOS. "There was considerable precipitation in summer, but hardly any fresh snow in the Alps. All this shows the impact of climate change," states D-BAUG glaciologist Matthias Huss, who heads GLAMOS.

For the first time, researchers at D-BAUG have measured air-water flows with velocities exceeding 40 m/s. To this end, two challenging measurement campaigns were carried out in the tunnel spillway of a 225-meter high dam, for which special probes first had to be developed. With the new data, existing design guidelines can be validated, and so-called scale effects can be assessed more accurately. This is relevant for the safe operation of hydraulic structures.