WWW-YES-2012

12th edition of the World Wide Workshop for Young Environmental Scientists (WWW-YES-2012)

21 - 25 May 2012 at Arcueil, France

Introduction

The WWW-YES-2012 workshop has taken place from Monday 21 to Friday 25 May, from 8:30 to 18:00, at Communauté d’Aglomération du Val de Bièvre CAVB (see venue). Except for Monday 21 May, all scientific sessions and lunches took place, in an informal way, within the meeting hall ’Salle du Conseil) of this local institution. On Monday 21 May, all activities were held at Arcueil city hall (Hotel de Ville d’Arcueil) within the main meeting hall (Salle du Conseil). See detailed map and location addresses on the venue article).

WWW-YES workshop proceedings (draft PDF version): cover & text (2.5 Mb): a printed version was distributed to all participants at workshop opening.

Official opening of the workshop (Monday 21 May at Arcueil city hall)

Within a short morning session opened to hosting institutions at Arcueil city hall, the CAVB, the Arcueil municipality and the Conseil General du Val de Marne (CG94), the 12th edition of the WWW-YES workshop was officially opened and participants briefly introduced themselves, their academic institution and their ongoing research activity.

Oral presentations (21 - 24 May)

Each participant had prepared and uploaded prior to 4 April a 6-10 page manuscript following the suggested format.

Each participant had prepared a 10 min scientific presentation, in English, on his / her research project and was ready for 30 min detailed scientific discussion during the workshop, also exclusively in English, chaired by the workshop participant in charge of reviewing his/her manuscript.

The oral presentation (ca. 10 slides) especially focussed on:

• The scientific context of the research subject,
• The research questions that are expected to be answered during the PhD preparation, together with their environmental justification,
• The field and/or lab and/or model methodologies that are currently or will be used, together with their justification for addressing the questions presented before,
• One or two major results obtained so far,
• The planned research activity till the end of the PhD (or after its termination, in the case of a PhD which is already finished),
• The significance and limitations of these methodologies for developing countries.

Workshop participants were reminded of the large diversity of background knowledge within their colleagues, i.e. from natural to human sciences: thus these oral presentations were expected to be extremely clear and well illustrated, allowing non-specialists of the research field to understand the raised environmental questions and the applied methods.

Each participant had received a manuscript to review, using a referee report form: this review was expected to be filled and sent back prior to 26 April to Daniel Thevenot, who then sent these reports to the author of the manuscript. Thus WWW-YES participants were ready, after their oral presentation, to answer to comments and questions raised by his/her referee.

As for previous editions since 2008, all participants were offered to publish their paper in an Open Source specific WWW-YES-2012 collection on HAL: see at this site the published manuscripts.

A printed version of the proceedings draft version was given to each participant upon arrival. In addition, a PDF version of this document is available on the Web (2.5 Mb).

Field visit (Tuesday 22 May afternoon)

A half-day technical visit on urban water issues was organised at several sites of Bièvre valley, upstream to Arcueil. Herve Cardinal at the SIAVB (Verrieres-le-Buisson) explained the river management upstream the highly urbanised part of the river where it becomes a domestic underground sewer. A visit of one of the hydraulic regulation lakes, "etand des Damoiseaux" was conducted by Hervé Cardinal.

Finally, participants discovered parts of the Bièvre River where it has been re-opened (in the middle of a newly designed park Parc des Pres) or will be re-opened (Cachan). Christian Metaire, vice-president of CAVB, presented and discussed this project with workshop participants.

This field visit was accompanied by Daniel Thevenot to ensure the transfer of knowledge and the discussion with the representatives of the local water authority.

Scientific programme (21 - 25 May)

Monday 21 May at Arcueil city hall

Official opening of the workshop

Session 1. Waste water management

Collaborative research project

Tuesday 22 May at CAVB

Session 1. Waste water management (follow.)

Session 2. Water management

Field visit and public meeting

Wednesday 23 May at CAVB

Session 2. Water management (follow.)

Collaborative research project

Thursday 24 May at CAVB

Session 3. Water resource

Collaborative research project

Friday 25 May at CAVB

Collaborative research project