|
Hydraulics Research Station
HR Wallingford was previously the Hydraulics Research Station (HRS). It was created by the UK Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1947. The Research Station was based in Wallingford, near Oxford. It was established to deal with “looser boundary” problems such as coastal erosion, flood protection and the silting and scouring of rivers, estuaries and harbours. The Hydraulics Research Station was housed at Howbery Park as a government establishment until 1982, when it was privatised from the Department of the Environment to become Hydraulics Research Station Limited. It is known as HR Wallingford. During its existence, HRS contributed to advance hydraulics research. It also worked on water-related projects in the UK and around the world. Brief history 1945 - The Institution of Civil Engineers submitted a proposal to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research on the need for a hydraulics research station in the UK. 1947 – DSIR Hydraulic Research Organ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Department Of Scientific And Industrial Research (United Kingdom)
The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was a department of the British Government responsible for the organisation, development, and encouragement of scientific and industrial research. At the outbreak of the First World War "Britain found ... it was dangerously dependent on enemy industries". At the request of the Board of Trade, the Board of Education prepared a White Paper under the chairmanship of Sir William McCormick. The DSIR was set up to fill the roles that the White Paper specified: "to finance worthy research proposals, to award research fellowships and studentships n universities and to encourage the development of research associations in private industry and research facilities in university science departments. trapidly assumed a key role in coordinating government aid to university research. It maintained these roles until 1965. The annual budget during its first year, 1915, was £1,000,000. History Before the twentieth century, the government was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallingford, Oxfordshire
Wallingford () is a historic market town and civil parish located between Oxford and Reading on the River Thames in England. Although belonging to the historic county of Berkshire, it is within the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire for administrative purposes (since 1974) as a result of the 1972 Local Government Act. Wallingford is north of Reading, south of Oxford and north west of Henley-on-Thames. The town's population was 11,600 in the 2011 census. The town has played an important role in English history starting with the surrender of Stigand to William the Conqueror in 1066, which led to his taking the throne and the creation of Wallingford Castle. The castle and the town enjoyed royal status and flourished for much of the Middle Ages. The Treaty of Wallingford, which ended a civil war known as The Anarchy between King Stephen and Empress Matilda, was signed there. The town then entered a period of decline after the arrival of the Black Death and falling out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coastal Erosion
Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward retreat of the shoreline can be measured and described over a temporal scale of tides, seasons, and other short-term cyclic processes. Coastal erosion may be caused by hydraulic action, abrasion, impact and corrosion by wind and water, and other forces, natural or unnatural. On non-rocky coasts, coastal erosion results in rock formations in areas where the coastline contains rock layers or fracture zones with varying resistance to erosion. Softer areas become eroded much faster than harder ones, which typically result in landforms such as tunnels, bridges, columns, and pillars. Over time the coast generally evens out. The softer areas fill up with sediment eroded from hard areas, and rock formations are eroded away. Also erosion comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howbery Park
Howbery Park is a 36-ha park located adjacent to the River Thames in Crowmarsh Gifford near Wallingford, UK. Its main feature is an English manor house built in about 1850 by Member of Parliament (MP) William Seymour Blackstone. Blackstone fell into debt, largely because of the building costs, which resulted in him spending time in the debtors' prison at Oxford and contributed to the end of his political career. He died in Brighton, never having lived at Howbery Park. Other owners of Howbery Park were Henry Bertie Williams-Wynn (who purchased the house in 1867), Harvey du Cros (in 1902) and George Denison Faber, 1st Baron Wittenham. The estate passed into the ownership of the government in the 1930s and was used during the Second World War to house US and Canadian servicemen and then refugees from Central Europe. After the war, it was selected as the location for the new Hydraulics Research Station (HRS), established under the directorship of Sir Claude Inglis. HRS was pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Environment Research Council
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences. History NERC began in 1965 when several environmental (mainly geographic) research organisations (including Nature Conservancy which became the Nature Conservancy Council in 1973 and was divided up in 1991) were brought under the one umbrella organisation. When most research councils were re-organised in 1994, it had new responsibilities – Earth observation and science-developed archaeology. Collaboration between research councils increased in 2002 when Research Councils UK was formed. Chief executives * Sir Graham Sutton (1965–1970) • Professor James William Longman Beament (succeeding V. C. Wynne-Edwards FRS) 1978-1981 * Professor John Krebs, Baron Krebs 1994-1999 * Sir John Lawton 1999–2005 * Professor Alan Thorpe 2005–2011 * Dr Steven Wilson (Acting) – 2011–2012 * Professor Duncan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centre For Ecology And Hydrology
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a centre for excellence in environmental science across water, land and air. The organisation has a long history of investigating, monitoring and modelling environmental change, and its science makes a difference in the world. The issues that its science addresses include: air pollution, biodiversity, chemical risks in the environment, extreme weather events, droughts, floods, greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, sustainable agriculture, sustainable ecosystems, water quality, and water resources management. UKCEH coordinates a number of long-term environmental science monitoring sites and programmes, including the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme, the Isle of May Long-Term Study, the UK National River Flow Archive, the Plynlimon catchment study, lakes monitoring at Loch Leven and in the English Lake District, the UK Cosmic-ray soil moisture monitoring network (COSMOS-UK), the UK Upland Waters Monitoring Network and the UKCEH Coun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thames Estuary
The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salinity). For this reason the limits of the Thames Estuary have been defined differently at different times and for different purposes. Western This limit of the estuary has been defined in two main ways: * The narrow estuary is strongly tidal and is known as the Tideway. It starts in south-west London at Teddington Lock and weir, Teddington/ Ham. This point is also mid-way between Richmond Lock which only keeps back a few miles of man-made head (stasis) of water during low tide and the extreme modern-era head at Thames Ditton Island on Kingston reach where slack water occurs at maximal high tide in times of rainfall-caused flooded banks. In terms of salinity the transition from freshwater to estuarine occurs around Battersea; east of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thames Barrier
The Thames Barrier is a retractable barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been operational since 1982. When needed, it is closed (raised) during high tide; at low tide, it can be opened to restore the river's flow towards the sea. Built about east of the Isle of Dogs, its northern bank is in Silvertown in the London Borough of Newham and its southern bank is in the New Charlton area of the Royal Borough of Greenwich. History Background Flooding in London has been a problem since Roman times. In 1954, the Waverley Committee, established to investigate the serious North Sea flood of 1953 which affected parts of the Thames Estuary and parts of London, recommended that "as an alternative to raising the banks, the possibility and cost of erecting a structure across the Thames which could be closed in a surge should be urgently investigated". A number of des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witherby Publishing Group
Witherby Publishing Group, formerly known as Witherby Seamanship, is a technical publisher of maritime, nautical and navigation training, reference and regulatory materials. The company is the resulting merger of Witherby Books and Seamanship International in January 2008. Beginning with its origins in 1740 it lays claim to being the oldest independent publisher in the English-speaking world. Witherbys are the official electronic distributors for the International Maritime Organization and publish guidance titles with numerous shipping bodies and maritime NGOs. These include the International Chamber of Shipping, the UK Chamber of Shipping, BIMCO, OCIMF, SIGTTO, North P&I, the UK P&I Club, the International Association of Classification Societies, the Merchant Navy Training Board and the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST). Witherbys are an official distributor of INTERTANKO publications. The company holds working groups, which include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LNG Carrier
An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). History The first LNG carrier '' Methane Pioneer'' () carrying , classed by Bureau Veritas, left the Calcasieu River on the Louisiana Gulf coast on 25 January 1959. Carrying the world's first ocean cargo of LNG, it sailed to the UK where the cargo was delivered. Subsequent expansion of that trade has brought on a large expansion of the fleet to today where giant LNG ships carrying up to are sailing worldwide. The success of the specially modified C1-M-AV1-type standard ship ''Normarti'', renamed ''Methane Pioneer'', caused the Gas Council and Conch International Methane Ltd. to order two purpose built LNG carriers to be constructed: ''Methane Princess'' and ''Methane Progress''. The ships were fitted with Conch independent aluminum cargo tanks and entered the Algerian LNG trade in 1964. These ships had a capacity of . In the late 1960s, opportunity arose to export LNG from Alaska to Japan, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mooring
A mooring is any permanent structure to which a vessel may be secured. Examples include quays, wharfs, jetties, piers, anchor buoys, and mooring buoys. A ship is secured to a mooring to forestall free movement of the ship on the water. An ''anchor mooring'' fixes a vessel's position relative to a point on the bottom of a waterway without connecting the vessel to shore. As a verb, ''mooring'' refers to the act of attaching a vessel to a mooring. The term likely stems from the Dutch verb ''meren'' (to ''moor''), used in English since the end of the 15th century. Permanent anchor mooring These moorings are used instead of temporary anchors because they have considerably more holding power, for example because of lesser damage to the marine environment, and are convenient. Where there is a row of moorings they are termed a tier. They are also occasionally used to hold floating docks in place. There are several kinds of moorings: Swing moorings Swing moorings also known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
