Paolo Burlando

Paolo Burlando has been Associate Professor of Hydrology and Water Resource Management at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology since January 1997.

Paolo Burlando was born in Genoa, Italy, on February 26, 1960. In 1984 he graduated from the University of Genoa in Civil Engineering, and in 1989 he received his Ph.D. in Hydraulic Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. Afterwards, he was assistant in the courses for Hydraulic Infrastructures and Engineering Hydrology at Politecnico di Milano. In 1990 There, he was appointed as researcher in 1990 and in 1993 he obtained the tenured status of senior researcher. In 1994 he was also designated professor in charge of Basin and River Training at Politecnico di Milano.

His research interests deal with a wide spectrum of fields in the hydrological fundamentals of water resources analysis and planning. In detail, he contributed in the areas of water resources planning and management, rainfall field analysis, hydrologic extreme forecasting and prediction, and global change and water resources. He was involved in many local, national and international research projects in the field of basic and applied hydrology. He also worked on research contracts concerning flood hazards and flood estimation procedures, network design, and water resources analysis under climatic instability. He gained experience as a consulting engineer in the field of hydrological and hydraulic risk analysis, flood hazards mitigation planning, and river training.

In January 1997 he was appointed by the ETH Zurich as full Professor of Hydrology and Water Resource Mechanics to the Institute for Hydromechanics and Water Resources Management. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the field of hydrology. The above mentioned research fields still represent his main research interests. In this respect, special attention is paid to the most recent trends in research development in hydrology, including both basic and applied research, as well as to arguments that are relevant to water related planning and design activities in the field of environmental and civil engineering.