Poul Harremoës was awarded the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences 2000 for his contributions to the theory of biofilm kinetics in relation to biological waste water treatment and for his successful organisation of the international scientific community in water pollution research and control.
Poul Harremoës belongs to the pioneers who tried to track down pollution with radioactive tracers. As head of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, he has contributed to making this department one of the biggest and broadest university departments world-wide and an acknowledged world leader in the field. Dominant fields of research have been oxygen depletion in rivers, nitrification-denitrification and biofilm kinetics applied to waste water treatment. Professor Harremoës organises scientific co-operation in water pollution research and control on an international scale in the International Association for Water Pollution Research and Control, IAWPRC (now International Water Association, IWA).
About the laureate
Poul Harremoës was born in Denmark in 1934. He graduated from the Technical University of Denmark in 1957 and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959. He became a full professor at the Technical University of Denmark in 1972 and the head of the Department of Environmental Engineering. Professor Harremoës has lectured all over the world. He received the Stockholm Water Prize on behalf of the Department in 1992. Professor Harremoës has initiated and organised numerous international conferences and has been a member of the scientific committees for many such conferences. He joined the Scientific Committee of the European Environmental Agency in 1994.
Poul Harremoës died 26 November 2003.