TJU Confers Guest Professorship upon Director Philippe Gourbesville of the Polytech Nice-Sophia

Director of the Polytech Nice-Sophia Philippe Gourbesville was conferred Guest Professorship by Associate Vice President Liu Yaochang of Tianjin University on April 17. Representatives of the School of Civil Engineering and the Office of International Cooperation were present at the conferring ceremony.

During the ceremony, a representative of the School of Civil Engineering gave an introduction to Director Philippe Gourbesville in regard to his outstanding academic achievements in the areas of hydrology, hydraulics (free surface flow) and hydroinformatics as well as his significant contributions to the education and research collaboration between two universities. She hoped that Director Gourbesville could provide further support to promote bilateral cooperation and exchange.

Following the ceremony, Director Gourbesville delivered a lecture entitled “Urban flooding and Resilience: concepts and needs”. He pointed out that a growing interest for resilience has been given in the mitigation of natural disaster and especially in the prevention of floods recent years. Many countries have started relevant research. Urban resilience focuses on the ability to resist and respond to hazards. These abilities enable the urban system to adjust to various disasters, making cities recover to their original functions and structures. Urban resilience is de？ned as the degree to which cities are able to tolerate some disturbance before reorganizing a new set of structures and processes. Strategies of ？ood management planning related to resilience of urban systems lay stress on controlling runoff volume, increasing capacity of drainage systems, spatial planning, and building regulations, etc. Resilience also includes resilience of population to ？ood and other related factors. After the lecture, Director Gourbesville exchanged views with the participants.

Director Gourbesville has more than 120 international publications. He is also the member of eight scientific and editorial boards, and has been awarded Grand Prix Hydrotechnique from Société Hydrotechnique de France (SHF) in 2011.