November 2021

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.