Welcome Address

Marco Del Borghi,  Head of DICHEP, Università di Genova, Italy

This Environmetrics Conference is the last of a series of Conferences, the first of which was held in Cairo fourteen years ago. On that occasion the foundations of the International Environmetrics Society were laid.

It was felt that the Society might act as a veritable forum for a large number of scientists and engineers working in the field of “Applications of quantitative methods to environmental problems”.

The decisive momentum to the creation of the Society was given by the insight of Prof. El-Shaarawi who was the first President of the Society and whom we are particularly glad to welcome today in Genoa.

The rapid growth in the number of members and the prestige gained by the Society worldwide show how far sighted and far reaching that decision was.

The official Journal of the Society (it has the name as the Society itself and is published by Wiley r (who is one of the sponsors of this Conference), covers today some of the most significant contributions in this sector and has become the most authoritative voice in “quantitative environmental methods”.

One can easily realize the increasing importance of the thematic areas which form the core of the Environmetrics Society by simply looking through the titles of the contributions of this Conference. From climate change to ozone layer depletion, from the Kyoto accord to human health and epidemiology, all of them presented by the most distinguished scholars worldwide.

Due to lack of time I can mention but a few of them. I shall limit myself to the plenary lectures held by prof. Lennart Bengtsson on climate changes (which will inaugurate the Conference), by prof. Noel Cressie on the estimation of the ozone layer and by prof. Jan Pasman on human health risk assessment. The panel on the perspectives of quantitative methods in the environmental sciences will be a convenient epitome for the whole Conference and will point to future activities of the Society.

The University of Genoa (in particular the Faculty of Engineering) has always had an active part in the activities of the International Environmetrics Society. There have been contributions from our Faculty to nearly all Environmetrics Conferences held so far, our staff members have passionately taken part in the life of the Society.

Therefore I am particularly happy to welcome all participants (from over twenty countries) and I am proud that our Faculty has the possibility of hosting for five days the most advanced forum on quantitative methods for the environment.

My most sincere wishes for a fruitful and productive work in the next days.