News & Stories

“Every tree is a living thing,” says Prof. WANG Yu-Hsing, Associate Head and Professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, while admiring a tree on the hillside near HKUST’s waterfront. Typhoon Mangkhut in September 2018 cracked the tree almost in half. Severely damaged, Prof. Wang thought it might not make it, but it did miraculously. What fascinates him most is the tree’s resilience and tenacity in withstanding adverse weather conditions that have become more rampant due to climate change. In order to monitor the tree’s stability, Prof. Wang has installed a smart sensor at its lower trunk to monitor its’ tilting angle. The sensor mounted on the tree is developed by Prof. Wang and his research team who originally conducted a student-oriented project of using sensing technology on slopes seven years ago.

A collection of articles our faculty members contributed to an exclusive weekly column in The Standard newspaper, inspiring readers to use innovation and creativity to build a better future.

Graduated with a BSc in Mathematics in 2011, Lancelot SHIR has taken a sweet and varied journey in life. A few years after graduation, Lancelot already had success with his first business — a tutorial center teaching mathematics — which he funded with two years of hard work of working. As a local rock star tutor, it could have been all maths for Lancelot with his tutorial business achieving great results. However, he encountered a health problem in 2017 due to massive work pressure, and his life took an unexpected turn.  “I was suffering from a stomach problem and a friend of mine suggested I used raw honey to treat the problem. It worked a treat and I was suddenly catapulted into the world of honey and bees – I couldn’t stop learning and it changed my life,” he says.

This month, we experienced the hottest day of the year as temperatures in Hong Kong reached 35.1 degrees Celsius. Countries across western Europe also struggled in record-breaking temperatures recently, with France hit the worst at 45.9 degrees in June. The grim situation appears to have been a repeat of last year's conditions. Although there are ongoing indepth analyses and further studies to examine the causes of individual extreme temperature events, many experts believe that extreme heat waves would not be feasible without anthropogenic climate change, meaning human activities are the main culprit for global warming ravages. Such an assumption has been proven by climate models - a complex computer simulation of physical processes and mathematical formulae used mainly to predict climate and understand how the climate system responds to elevated greenhouse gas emissions.

A recent Consumer Council survey has found that only two out of eight tested anti-bacterial handwash products can live up to their claims of having 99.9 percent efficacy in killing germs, sparking worries amongst the public. Advertisements often imply that bacteria in homes are harmful and must be eliminated by using any antibacterial or antimicrobial products available. However, Boston University's School of Public Health suggests only about 5 percent of bacterial species are disease-causing, in other words pathogenic. In fact, the pursuit of a germ-free environment is futile. Some bacteria are just impossible to eliminate with chemicals in the cleansing agents, or at the concentrations level of the chemicals we are commonly using. Even the so-called 99.9 percent efficacy must rely on perfect usage of the product.

The recent Extinction Rebellion movement in the UK protested against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and the risk of social and ecological collapse. Protesters called for policies that can achieve a net zero carbon footprint by 2025, one of the 17 sustainable development goals agreed by world leaders at the United Nations in 2015. Meeting these goals requires more than addressing climate change. Sustainable development is a balance between the needs of the environment, society and economy in order to maintain a quality standard of life for both present and future generations. Many countries, including the UK, have implemented goal-specific measures in a bid to achieve the 17 goals, with voluntary national reviews to see if the measures are effective.

Air pollution is a major environmental and health concern in Hong Kong and the largest environmental health risk, according to the World Health Organization, tying it to seven million premature deaths globally in 2016. Yet many of us accept it as part of city living. In a bid to help city dwellers take their health into their own hands, HKUST's Institute for the Environment recently launched a game-changing mobile app that lets users monitor air quality to reduce their exposure to air pollution. Titled PRAISE-HK (Personalized Real-time Air-quality Informatics System for Exposure), the app provides real-time air quality and health risk information and forecasts, down to the street you are at, up to two days in advance, helping Hongkongers live a smarter and healthier life. One of the world-leading technologies behind the app is our dynamic transport modeling.

Our fishery gave birth to a love of seafood, but it is also contributing to the global fish stocks decline. We degraded it through overfishing, pollution and reclamation before building a fleet to ravage fisheries in other places. Many cities have actually done the same. Ironically, calls to save global fish stocks come from cities that sacrificed their own fisheries. Yet, Hong Kong also shows the way to a solution. It retains a resilient population of people who fish, those with the expertise and toughness to build a sustainable fishery, that is, such as those where catch volume and fishing practices allow for continual regeneration of stock, while enabling fishers to achieve a decent standard of living. People in the industry will overfish and abuse the ecosystem to provide more income if they can't afford a living. But our highly adaptable fishermen can demonstrate a global model for sustainable fishery.