Alberto Montanari

The 2017 Union Service Award is awarded to Alberto Montanari in recognition of his outstanding services to EGU’s awards programme, incorporating the highest ethical standards and transparency in procedures.

Alberto Montanari served as an efficient and motivated Chair of the EGU Awards Committee from 2009 to 2016. During this term he completely revised and streamlined the procedures to the current high standards with professional and transparent nomination and evaluation procedures. These procedures ensure high ethical standards in the whole process from nomination to decision. Alberto further brought the awards ceremony at the EGU General Assembly to its current outstanding quality with focus on the awardees and their scientific contributions. His leadership of the Awards Committee further strengthened council’s awareness of issues such as gender and geographical balance without compromising the primary criterion for the awards which is scientific quality.
Before and during the beginning of his term as chair of the Awards Committee, Alberto Montanari was President of the Division for Hydrological Sciences, following a series of other posts in this division since 2004. During his presidency he promoted the Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award to its present importance and initiated the Leonardo Conference Series. Between 2004 and 2013 he was an editor of the EGU journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS). Alberto Montanari has contributed significantly to the development of EGU since he convened his first session for the EGS in 1998. In summary, he has made a valuable, significant and lasting contribution to EGU.
Alberto Montanari is currently head of Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering at the University of Bologna, where he has held positions in Hydrology and Water Resources since 1998, and since 2012 as Full Professor. He received his MSc in 1992 from University of Parma and the PhD degree in 1996. His research interests are driven by his wish to solve practical engineering problems related to water resources and mitigation of risks with focus on his native region. Modelling changes in water systems has high priority in his research and he has promoted innovative use of physically-based stochastic algorithms.