About the conference

WETPOL (Wetland Pollutant Dynamics and Control) is a biannual international conference bringing together wetland scientists, engineers and practitioners working on wetland ecosystem services, including water quality improvement, climate regulation, and flood control. WETPOL was initiated in 2005 in Ghent (Belgium), and has since then seen succesful follow-up conference in Tartu (Estonia, 2007), Barcelona (Spain, 2009), Prague (Czech Republic, 2011), Nantes (France, 2013), York (UK, 2015), Big Sky (Montana, USA, 2017), Aarhus (Denmark, 2019) and Vienna (Austria, 2021). For this 10th anniversary edition, WETPOL will be organized again in Belgium, in the beautiful city of Bruges.

 

The conference will create a framework for wetland scientists and practitioners to exchange knowledge and advance the overall understanding of these complex ecosystems. The goal is to improve our understanding of the role wetlands perform in processing nutrients and contaminants, and to discuss and demonstrate how restored and constructed wetlands in the future, via their associated ecosystem services, can contribute to ensure sustainable water management and resource recovery while at the same time regulating and mitigating impacts of global climate change.

 

Organizing committee

  • Diederik Rousseau, Ghent University, Belgium
  • Gijs Du Laing, Ghent University, Belgium
  • Flor Louage, Ghent University, Belgium
  • Huma Ilyas, Ghent University, Belgium
  • Mireille Martens, HZ University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
  • Emma McAteer, HZ University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
  • Bart van der Bruggen, KULeuven, Belgium
  • Dion van Oirschot, Rietland, Belgium
  • Birgit De Bock, Aquafin, Belgium

Scientific committee

  • Ülo Mander, University of Tartu, Estonia
  • Joan Garcia, BarcelonaTECH, Spain
  • Jacques Brisson, Université de Montreal, Canada
  • Carmen Hernandez Crespo, University of Valencia, Spain
  • Otto R. Stein, Montana State University, USA
  • Florent Chazarenc, INRAE, France
  • Jan Vymazal, Czech University of Life Sciences, Czech Republic
  • Karin Tonderski, Linköping University, Sweden
  • Gabriela Dotro, Cranfield University, UK
  • Günter Langergraber, BOKU, Austria
  • Carlos Arias, Aarhus University, Denmark
  • Matthew Simpson, 35Percent and SWS Europe
  • Karoli Njau, Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Tanzania