Xina’s work on “Sustainable Drinking Water Treatment” showed that global warming potential (GWP) was the most significant environmental impact for all the treatment technologies analysed using a Life Cycle Assessment, justifying the increasing focus on carbon accounting tools as a measure of environmental impact in the water sector. Her work was judged to be the winner by a Panel of practising engineers drawn from across the Region. They commended all the projects considered as being technically very good, but felt that Xina’s was distinguished from the others by being self-critical, extending the results to cover other aspects of sustainable water supply, and containing a “what if” analysis on the different options with an assessment of the sensitivity of the results to different inputs.

Xina was presented with a cheque for £250 by John Canton, the Institution of Civil Engineers Regional Manager in the East of England at a recent Branch meeting in the Department.