GUWAHATI, Dec 20 - On the second day of the three-day first international conference on �Civil Engineering for Sustainable Development - Opportunities and Challenges (CESDOC 2016)�, organised by the Civil Engineering Department of the Assam Engineering College (AEC), a panel of eminent speakers deliberated on various issues of sustainable development.
A press release said Prof Ikuo Towhata from the University of Tokyo deliberated on the long-term effects of a strong earthquake shaking on slope instability and its mitigation and spoke about co-seismic slope failure during the 1950 Assam Earthquake.
Dr Deepankar Choudhury from IIT Bombay spoke on recent advances on design of combined pile-raft foundation and emphasised the advantage of such foundations for tall structures, especially for seismically active region like the North East.
Dr Nayan Sarma from IIT Roorkee spoke on the prime sustainability issues on Brahmaputra river management and alarming process of river bank erosion, unabated channel widening and deposition, climate change effects and hydro-politics. He warned about the looming possibility of future diversion of the Yarlung Tsangpo by China and expressed concern over the �no water sharing agreement� with China and Bangladesh.
Dr SK Deb from IIT Guwahati presented the innovative base isolation system for reduction of seismic vulnerability of low-rise buildings, developed by his team at IIT Guwahati. The system has already been implemented in a building at Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh and the cost of such indigenously developed base isolation is 10 times less than the imported system.
Bhargab Mohan Das, group chief business development officer of Ritta Group, the largest construction group in Bangkok, Thailand and co-founder and president of Thai Global Energy Co Ltd, spoke on �Sustainable Energy Efficiency Enhancement Trends in Buildings in Asia: A Retrospection and the Perceived Way Forward�.
Dr Biswajit Bhattacharjee from IIT Delhi spoke about functional requirements of buildings and sustainability challenges.
Dr Arup K Sarma from IIT Guwahati spoke on vegetative measure for controlling erosion in changing climate. Guna Nidhi Paudyal, senior flood risk management expert, mentioned ways to reduce flood risks by forecasting and optimum reservoir operation.
Prof Nitin Kr Tripathi from the Asian Institute of Technology spoke on urban fire risk mapping and management. Gourango Singh, country head, Geobrugg India Pvt Ltd, spoke on rockfall protection and slope stabilisation along the trek route to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine, Katra, J&K.