STAGE ONE
THE GEORGE BARLEY WATER PRIZE
Stage One of the competition was open to everyone, from top-tier universities doing cutting edge research to inventors working in their garage. 104 teams entered ideas, and offered their insights and inspirations on why they decided to embark on solving one of the most vexing challenges facing our planet.
In this stage the prize purse was $35,000 competitors were judged on
1. Performance indicators
2. Experiment description
3. Environmental outcome assessment
4. Overall presentation
Competitors were scored on
1. Phosphorus Removal
2. Environmental Sustainability
3. Overall Presentation
STAGE ONE
THE GEORGE BARLEY WATER PRIZE
Stage One of the competition was open to everyone, from top-tier universities doing cutting edge research to inventors working in their garage. 104 teams entered ideas, and offered their insights and inspirations on why they decided to embark on solving one of the most vexing challenges facing our planet.
In this stage the prize purse was $35,000 competitors were judged on
1. Performance indicators
2. Experiment description
3. Environmental outcome assessment
4. Overall presentation
Competitors were scored on
1. Phosphorus Removal
2. Environmental Sustainability
3. Overall Presentation
GRAND
CHALLENGE
THE GEORGE BARLEY WATER PRIZE
The final ‘Grand Challenge’ stage of the George Barley Water Prize will be the robust testing of contestants under field conditions in the Greater Everglades to validate whether these leading technologies can remove phosphorus from the Kissimmee River or a comparable water body under real conditions at significantly lower cost than currently possible.
The 9 Pilot Phase teams will be narrowed down to the final four, who will move on to the final stage of the competition. Advancers will be announced in October 2018, in Toronto, during Canada’s Water Innovation Week. While Stage 3 asked teams to perform through snowmelt conditions, Stage 4 will require teams to demonstrate their ability to perform in subtropical conditions. Four teams will receive continuous flow, averaging 1 million gallons per day (gpd), with a variable spike of 4 million gallons per day, over the course of 14 months.
A Grand Challenge winner will have demonstrated endurance in a range temperatures, proving their technology is globally applicable. With the support of the State of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection and the St. John’s River Water Management District, the Grand Challenge will be hosted on the banks of Lake Jesup, in Oviedo, Florida.
In this stage the prize purse is a
$10 Million Grand Prize
$250,000 Secondary Prize
$170,000 Phoenix Prize
competitors are judged on
1. TP results from grand stage testing
2. Cost calculations
3. Background water characteristics
4. Waste disposal plan
5. Environmental outcome assessment
6. By-product recovery income plan
7. Twenty-page scalability plan
Competitors were scored on
1. Phosphorus Removal
2. Environmental Sustainability
3. Overall Presentation
GRAND
CHALLENGE
THE GEORGE BARLEY WATER PRIZE
The final ‘Grand Challenge’ stage of the George Barley Water Prize will be the robust testing of contestants under field conditions in the Greater Everglades to validate whether these leading technologies can remove phosphorus from the Kissimmee River or a comparable water body under real conditions at significantly lower cost than currently possible.
The 9 Pilot Phase teams will be narrowed down to the final four, who will move on to the final stage of the competition. Advancers will be announced in October 2018, in Toronto, during Canada’s Water Innovation Week. While Stage 3 asked teams to perform through snowmelt conditions, Stage 4 will require teams to demonstrate their ability to perform in subtropical conditions. Four teams will receive continuous flow, averaging 1 million gallons per day (gpd), with a variable spike of 4 million gallons per day, over the course of 14 months.
A Grand Challenge winner will have demonstrated endurance in a range temperatures, proving their technology is globally applicable. With the support of the State of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection and the St. John’s River Water Management District, the Grand Challenge will be hosted on the banks of Lake Jesup, in Oviedo, Florida.
In this stage the prize purse is a
$10 Million Grand Prize
$250,000 Secondary Prize
$170,000 Phoenix Prize
competitors are judged on
1. TP results from grand stage testing
2. Cost calculations
3. Background water characteristics
4. Waste disposal plan
5. Environmental outcome assessment
6. By-product recovery income plan
7. Twenty-page scalability plan
Competitors were scored on
1. Phosphorus Removal
2. Environmental Sustainability
3. Overall Presentation
STAGE ONE
THE GEORGE BARLEY WATER PRIZE
Stage One of the competition was open to everyone, from top-tier universities doing cutting edge research to inventors working in their garage. 104 teams entered ideas, and offered their insights and inspirations on why they decided to embark on solving one of the most vexing challenges facing our planet.
In this stage the prize purse was $35,000 competitors were judged on
1. Performance indicators
2. Experiment description
3. Environmental outcome assessment
4. Overall presentation
Competitors were scored on
1. Phosphorus Removal
2. Environmental Sustainability
3. Overall Presentation
Khandker Ishtiaq, Ph.D.
Hydrologist
Khandker Ishtiaq (Ishtiaq) is The Everglades Foundation’s Hydrologist. His research intersects water resources engineering and ecosystem science and has entailed process-based and data-driven model development and integration across spatiotemporal scales, model-experimental data synthesis and benchmarking, and simulations of alternatives to assess the coastal ecosystem's trajectories under accelerated sea level rise (SLR) and saltwater intrusion.
Ishtiaq’s work on the Biscayne Bay and Southeastern Everglades Ecosystem Restoration (BBSEER) project involved calibration of the BISECT model for salinity performance measure development and evaluation of freshwater flow alternatives. He developed the EvPEM model that simulates peat elevation change in Everglades sawgrass marshes with SLR and freshwater flow restoration. He also developed hydrologic and water quality models to evaluate the effectiveness of low-impact development features in reducing urban flooding, water quality improvement in Biscayne Bay and Coral Gables, and potential impacts of storm surge barriers in Miami-Dade watersheds.
Ishtiaq received a bachelor’s and a master's degree in Water Resources Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. After receiving his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Florida International University (FIU), Ishtiaq led Post-Doctoral research at West Virginia University and FIU’s Sea Level Solutions Center. Before joining the Foundation, he worked as an Engineer with the Surface Water Management Unit at the South Florida Water Management District.