Dr. Noam Weisbrod from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Israel has been paying a 3-month visit to the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE), Chinese Academy of Sciences, from July through September, 2012.

On July 17, Dr. Weisbrod delivered his first presentation titled “Colloid-Facilitated Transport of Pollutants in Subsurface Environments”. During the visit Dr. Weisbrod will be conducting collaborative research with Professor Xiangyu Tang of IMHE, dealing with colloid-facilitated transport of pesticides on sloping farmland in the purple soil region, in support of developing mitigation strategies to reduce pesticide input to water bodies at the catchment scale. The two sides exchanged views on the state-of-the-art techniques for investigating colloid transport in soils and fractured rocks and the mechanisms for colloid-facilitated transport of contaminants through various preferential pathways. They also agreed to carry out extensive cooperation by jointly applying projects, sharing scientific facilities, and coauthoring papers on the basis of results of joint research.

Dr. Weisbrod, the head of the Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology of BGU and an associate editor of Vadose Zone Journal, has over 18 years research experience as a hydrologist focusing on different aspect of flow and transport of liquid, solid and gas phases in homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media. Dr Weisbrod’s research has made significant contributions to a better understanding of several fields or research, including:

Colloid and colloid-facilitated transport of contaminants in soils and fractured rocks

The role of fractures and preferential flow in flow and transport processes

The impact of the physical properties of solutions on its transport in the subsurface

The role of daily and seasonal temperature cycles on gas exchange across the earth-atmosphere interface

Combined evaporation and salt precipitation in soils.

Dr. Weisbrod gave his presentation(picture by IMHE)