Curriculum Vitae
Curriculum Vitae
Born in Lucca, Italy, on June 5th 1943, Professor Ezio Todini
grew up in Egypt, where his family lived since 1946. After
graduating in hydraulic engineering at the University of Pisa in
1969, he joined the IBM Pisa Scientific Centre in 1970.
He combined his role as a Research Scientist at the IBM Pisa
Scientific Centre (1970-79) with that of Professor of Applied
Hydromechanics at the University of Pisa (1973-80) and of Water
Resources Planning at the University of Florence (1979-81). Since
1980, he has held the chair of Water Resources Planning and of
Hydrology at the University of Bologna where he also served
as Director of the Institute for Hydraulic Construction
(1985-1989). From 1993 (XIV Cycle) to 2009 (XXV Cycle) he has been
the Coordinator of the PhD Programme "Physical Modelling for the
Protection of Environment". From 2000 to 2008 he has also been
President of the Management Board of ProGeA (Protezione e Gestione
Ambientale), a Spin-off company of the University of Bologna.
Prof. Todini is proficient in both English and French
languages.
Research Activity
Professor Todini's research activity, documented by more than
200 articles, has always been directed towards both the theoretical
aspects and their practical application.
His background and experience includes Hydrology, Water
Resources Planning, Hydraulics, Statistics, Numerical Methods and
Operations Research.
Prof. Todini research interests range from the formulation and
development of rainfall-runoff hydrological models, to flood
routing models, to decision making under uncertainty, such as for
instance when one has to decide whether or not to issue a flood
alert and/or the amount of water to be released (or kept) into a
reservoir under the pressure of an incoming flood wave.
His recent studies have been oriented to the water resources
sector and in particular in the reduction of leakages in water
distribution networks as well as in the analysis of physical,
socio-economical environmental and ecological factors affecting
sustainable water resources planning and management. For a number
of years, Prof. Todini has also dedicated noticeable research
efforts in the development of Decision Support Systems aimed at
Sustainable Water Resources Planning and Management.
His research in rainfall-runoff modelling has produced several
models, the CLS (1976), the ARNO (1989) (which was also included as
the soil moisture balance component of the ECHAM GCM model) and the
TOPKAPI (1998) models, that have been and still are
extensively applied all over the world.
His approach to flood routing has produced models such as the
PAB and the PABL, particularly suited for real-time flood
forecasting and the Muskingum-Cunge-Todini (MCT) method a
version of the Muskingum-Cunge approach corrected for mass balance,
which compares favorably with the results of full de Saint Venant
equations based commercial packages such as Mike11, Hec and Sobek.
These models are now in operation on many rivers.
Within the frame of 1D/2D flood inundation modeling, Prof.
Todini developed a computer package based upon Control Volume
Finite Elements, known as CVFE approach, while his current research
aims at finding massively parallelizable approaches, such as the
Cellular Automata approach.
His research in Kalman Filters originated an inverse modelling
approach (INVE) for the semi-automatic estimation of transmissivity
parameters in groundwater models. Professor Todini also developed
approaches for the assessment of parameter uncertainty in Kriging
and is now proposing a combined block Kriging - Bayesian technique
for the optimal combination of rain-gauge, radar and satellite
precipitation estimates. Moreover, in 1978 following the concept of
Instrumental Variables, he developed the Mutually Interactive State
and Parameter Estimation (MISP), a double Kalman Filter, one in the
space of the state and one in the space of parameters, which has
been extensively used in hydrology and has recently been recognised
(2006) not only the most advanced and unbiased real time approach,
but also the most efficient algorithm in the case of automatic
voice identification.
In 1978, in the domain of water distribution systems, he
invented an algorithm for the analysis of looped water distribution
networks (the Global Gradient Method) that has recently been
adopted by the US-EPA as the basis of their EPANET package, the
most popular and widely used freeware for water distribution
networks, and has been recognised as the most advanced and fast
converging looped water distribution networks algorithm. In 2000
Prof. Todini also introduced the concept of resilience of a water
distribution system and has shown how the resilience index can be
used to improve water distribution networks design using a
multi-criteria basis. Finally, in 2006 Prof. Todini obtained a US
Patent (n. US 7,013,248 B1) for the extension of the Global
Gradient algorithm to incorporate the direct computation of the
variable speed pumps coefficient, while in 2009 Prof. Todini
extended the Global Gradient to unsteady flow in water distribution
networks, in the absence of strong inertial phenomena.
His work in stochastic optimisation of reservoirs has led to the
clarification of the concept of long and short horizon
management and to the development of a real time management scheme,
as a temporary correction of the long term rule, based on a
minimisation of the expected costs and damages by making use of the
forecasting uncertainty. This approach, successfully applied to the
control and management of Lake Como in Italy since 1997, resulted
in extremely important benefits with a noticeable reduction of Como
flooding events, a substantial increment of available water
for irrigation and an increase in energy production of 3%.
Prof. Todini current research work is finalized to the
clarification of the Predictive Uncertainty in Hydrological
Forecasting, which is erroneously estimated and interpreted in
current practice. On this subject he has gained international
reputation as one of the pioneers in the development of uncertainty
post processors aimed at estimating predictive uncertainty and
their application to real world real time flood forecasting systems
such as the one on the Po river in Italy.
Editorial Activity
Prof. Todini is Associate Editor of Journal of Hydrology and of
Hydrology and Earth Sciences Systems and he is writing the book
“Hydrological Prediction, Uncertainty and Flood Risk”, together
with a colleague, Prof. P.E. O'Connell, for the Wiley-Blackwell
editing company.
International associations, research projects and consulting
activities
Prof. Todini has been very active in international associations
and organisations. He collaborated with WMO for the
inter-comparison of Rainfall-Runoff Conceptual Models, prepared the
statistical analysis for the Snow-melt Model Inter-comparison and
participated in the Real-Time Updated Rainfall-Runoff Model
Inter-comparison. He has taken an active role in the design and the
setting up of HOMS (Hydrological Operational Multipurpose
Sub-system), he has prepared an Italian version of the
International Glossary of Hydrological Terms for UNESCO and, as a
consultant, he has taken part in several missions on behalf of WMO
in Central America, China and the Caribbean and FAO in Uganda and
Ethiopia.
In the past, Prof. Todini has led many international research
projects including two projects dealing with models of Lake Nasser
and the Nile, an EUREKA ENVISYSTEM EU-487 for development of a
Decision Support System (DSS) at catchment scale, two EU funded
projects on real-time flood forecasting, FUCHUN and AFORISM, and
participated to several others, in the domain of hydrology and
water resources, such as CARPE DIEM, MITCH, TELFLOOD, VAHMPIRE,
CC-HYDRO, EFEDA-ECHIVAL, SLAPS1 and SLAPS2. Moreover, he has
completed the development of a DSS for the environmental assessment
of Water Resources Planning based on the principle of Environmental
Balance on behalf of the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works and the
Egyptian Environmental Agency and an innovative DSS aiming at
Sustainable Management of Water Resources within the frame of
project WaterStrategyMan.
Prof. Todini has been very active in operational real time flood
forecasting. He has developed more than 10 operational real-time
flood forecasting systems in Italy, Germany and China, and recently
he participated to project EFFS for the development of an European
Flood Forecasting System and has been the Co-ordinator of the EU
funded project MUSIC dealing with the Bayesian combination of
rain-gauges, radar and satellite areal rainfall estimates and the
assessment and communication of uncertainty to End-Users.
Presently, Professor Todini is participating to project FLOODsite
both as a participant and as a member of the Scientific and
Technical Advisory Board (STAB).
Prof. Todini has been the co-ordinator for the writing of a
report on “Understanding and Reducing Uncertainty in Flood
Forecasting”, within the frame of the Concerted Action ACTIF; the
author of “Hydrological Models for Flood Forecasting”, Chapter
HSA131 of the Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences (J. Wiley &
Sons) and is currently a member of the of WMO OPACHE group for the
writing of the WMO Manual on Real Time Flood Forecasting.
Prof. Todini has been the rapporteur for Hydrology at the First
Italian National Climate Conference (Florence, 1993) as well as an
invited speaker on the status of Water Resources in Italy at the
recent Conference on Climate Changes (Rome, 2007).
From October to December 2009, he spent three months of his
sabbatical leave as an Invited Fellow of the Institute of Advanced
Study of the University of Durham (UK), within the frame of which
he delivered several public conferences.
Prof. Todini is a member of the High Risks Commission of the
Emilia Romagna Region, of the Scientific Committee of WWF Italy,
and of several Italian and International Associations (Italians
Statistical Society, European Geophysical Union, American
Geophysical Union). In the past he has been Vice-President of the
International Water Resources Management Committee of IAHS as well
as Vice-President of IAHS. For the last two years he has been the
coordinator of the Willis Research Network research in spatial
correlation of extreme flood events, as part of the Bologna
University team. Recently he has been invited by several
International bodies (European Union, Volkswagen Foundation, Swiss
Nationa Science Foundation) to evaluate several project proposals,
as well as by Deltares, a large research public institution in the
Netherlands (800 researchers) in the hydraulic, hydrologic and
water resources fields, to be part of an auditing committee which
evaluated the last two years of Deltares scientific production.
Today, Prof. Todini is the President of the Italian Hydrological
Society, which premises are within the Department of Earth and
Environmental Sciences if the University of Bologna. The Italian
Hydrological Society was recently founded (September 2009) by 55
eminent professors, scholars and practitioners in the Hydrological
sector.