Tung Duc Nguyen, Karthik Ramanathan and Sameer Vohra (all EngSci Aero 0T9 + PEY; pictured below from left to right), entered and won the Team Category of the DeltaCompetition 2008. This competition is hosted by Royal Haskoning, a Dutch based Civil Engineering & Urban Development consulting firm. Its purpose is to encourage young minds and members of the new generation of decision makers to become involved in the quest for sustainable solutions to the problems and opportunities that arise due to climate change in densely populated delta areas. The competition was open to Bachelors, Masters and PhD students from any discipline from around the world.

Their paper entitled “Design and Deployment of Aquaponic Grid Communities” focused on the Ganges Brahmaputra River delta region located on the southern coast of Bangladesh. Their proposal involved an integrated farming community (called the Aquaponic Grid Community) in which plants and fish can be grown in a symbiotic manner in the same pool. The major benefit of their idea was that it would reclaim the thousands of acres of waterlogged land lost due to flooding each year in Bangladesh that is usually discarded as unsuitable for agriculture.

Quoting from the DeltaCompetition panel of judges: “This paper is a good example of a multi-disciplinary, solution-oriented concept that shows both a mitigative and adaptive approach to climate change. What the Panel of Judges particularly likes about this paper was the novel approach of chemical clean up by vegetation, but also that the scheme can be applied to a range of different contexts, within a framework that provides choice to the local community. The quality of the writing and good presentation of the argument are particularly noted.”

When asked about what prompted them to enter the competition, Sameer Vohra responded: “We found out about the competition when we saw a poster about it up in one of the U of T Engineering buildings. We were attracted by the present relevance of climate change and human factors on delta regions and their inhabitants. With being Aerospace students and more importantly having an Engineering Science background, we brought an interdisciplinary approach that differentiated us from our fellow competitors. We tried to focus on a holistic design rather than a purely engineering solution and we also tried to understand and positively impact the social, economical and political stakeholders of the delta region. We believe the Engineering Science Praxis courses and our second year design course helped us in establishing our design process and also in writing the report.”

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