Lifetime award for coastal research

James Cook University’s Professor Eric Wolanski has been awarded the first Estuarine and Coastal Sciences Association (ECSA) Lifetime Achievement Award.

Professor Wolanski is an Adjunct Professor in JCU’s School of Marine and Tropical Biology and Principal Research Officer in the Australian Centre for Tropical Freshwater Research.

Professor Wolanski was presented with the award in front of almost 600 scientists from 54 countries at a gala dinner in Mestre, near Venice, during ECSA’s 50th international conference earlier this month.

The ECSA is an international organisation dedicated to the promotion and advancement of multidisciplinary research into all aspects of estuaries and coasts and the application of science and technology for sustainable environmental management.

This is the first time a Lifetime Achievement Award has been granted by ECSA.

The award reflects Professor Wolanski’s achievements in marine science, including seven books, his 12-volume Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science, and 350 publications in estuarine and coastal science with co-workers in 13 countries.

Professor Wolanski said it was a “complete surprise” and “a wonderful thing” to receive the award.

“I was really thrilled. When I looked at the prominent scientists in that crowd there, I thought ‘I really don’t think I’m that good’ and I know I blushed.”

Professor Wolanski said he was at the event as an invited plenary lecturer and as the representative of two international scientific societies - Japan's International Centre for Environmental Management of Enclosed Coastal Seas (EMECS) and Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ), as a board member of both.

Earlier this year Professor Wolanski published what is believed to be the world’s most comprehensive work on estuarine and coastal science.

The collection of 12 books - The Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science – has more than 350 authors from across the world and runs to about 6000 pages

The volumes took about four years to complete. Professor Wolanski also officially launched The Treatise at the conference.

Issued 22 June, 2012

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