Lena Mutzner, Group Leader in the Urban Water Management Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology discusses the intricacies of stormwater quality monitoring. We learn a bit about how water quality is sampled, different pollutant types that she has focussed on and the ongoing challenge around contaminants of emerging concern. We also discuss the apparent paradox of repeating research cycles despite having done similar work 40 years ago, the importance of a holistic approach to stormwater management and how she is developing her research career into the uncertain future.

Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:59 Guest Intro & Meditative Activities
4:16 Nordic Countries vs. Switzerland
7:36 Lena's Mission in Water Quality
10:53 How it all started - engineering or psychiatry?
13:18 Contaminants of emerging concern
16:48 Studying Water Quality 101
26:28 Which contaminants does Lena focus on?
29:28 Tyre wear leachate and 6PPD-Quinone
33:01 Data issues towards building water quality understanding
36:45 Different types of common micropollutants
40:55 Interplay of Modelling and Water Quality Data Collection
46:18 Effect-based measurements
48:19 The holistic view - integration as a the way forward
51:05 Mitigation of pollution through Blue-Green Infrastructures
54:00 Lena's Future Research Trajectory
56:49 Q&A Start
57:24 What does innovation mean to you?
1:00:30 Key Moment, Person, Event
1:03:52 Women in STEM - Lena's drive to be a role model
1:06:40 Time Management
1:10:24 Favourite childhood memory
1:12:55 Biggest challenge to date
1:18:17 Advice for young researchers
1:20:00 What would you most like to be remembered for?
1:21:15 Where can people find you?
1:21:57 Final Message
1:22:15 Outro

Detailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.
Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!

Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.

Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on:

• X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach
• Instagram: @petermbach87
• Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its outputs... and a deep dive into some of the topics that we have covered on the show. We feature previous guests, who are here to join in on the fun!

Episode #5 delves into the links between water, energy and heat - Yannick Back (ep35) reacts to how NotebookLM produces a deep dive discussion (in English) of eight of his publications, all written in German and with different foci. This is the first experiment on this mini-series, which uses multiple sources.

The 8 Papers were published from 2019 to 2024. Full details can be found in the show notes. Their German titles are:

• 2019: Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Geoinformationssystemen in der Siedlungswasserwirtschaft am Beispiel Einbindung dezentraler Entwässerungssysteme zur Entlastung des städtischen Abwassernetzes
• 2019: Untersuchung und Optimierung der Einbindung dezentraler Entwässerungssysteme zur Entlastung des städtischen Abwassernetzes und Minderung urbaner Hitzeinseln
• 2020: Dezentrale Regenwasserbehandlung zur Entlastung der Kanalisation und Minderung urbaner Hitzeinseln
• 2020: Urbanen Hitzeinseln und überlasteten Entwässerungsnetzen entgegenwirken
• 2021: Latente Wärme vs. Sensible Wärme
• 2021: Rolle der Energie- und Wasserflüsse im Stadtsystem: Steigerung der Resilienz unserer Städte zur Anpassung an die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels
• 2023: Chancen und Herausforderungen bei der Gestaltung klimaresistenter dichter städtischer Gebiete mit Blaugrüner Infrastruktur
• 2024: Die Rolle der Bewässerung städtischer Grünflächen während gleichzeitiger Trocken- und Hitzeperioden

Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Funky Fortune by Danny Shields (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7vRFEGMyTTfeCtc8qiUB82?si=dygdqu9IQLSFYNvVzPNu5w)

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:27 Guest Intro, Vibe Coding and Catch up
3:20 Guest's prior experience with AI
5:02 How this experiment works
6:32 The human summary
11:19 Live Reaction
54:11 Post-discussion
59:03 Potential Future of AI
1:00:29 Wrap up
1:01:10 Outro

Detailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.
Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!

Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.

Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on:

• X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach
• Instagram: @petermbach87
• Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/

Jarrod Luxton, Senior Lead at the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra), Board Member of Finland's Sustainable Investment Forum (finsif) and Founder of First Arrow discusses what a best-practice sustainability strategy looks like in 2025! The key player? Nature! We delve into the topic of valuing nature-based solutions and compare and contrast between Australian and Nordic contexts, especially Finland's priorities and motivations for the practice. Jarrod and I also reflect upon our times in Australia and the transition to Europe.

Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:59 Guest Intro & Nordic Summers and reconnecting via Podcast
4:36 Missing Australian Rules Football ("Footy")
6:14 Jarrod's own podcast creation journey
7:29 Jarrod's interest in ESG
12:58 NBS and Terminology
17:13 Valuation of NBS, Sitra and Jarrod's perspective
34:41 Finland's Adoption of NBS - current status
37:25 Green gentrification and being equitable with NbS
39:55 The role of spatial data
41:36 What does a best practice sustainability strategy look like in 2025
48:22 Unpacking the importance and thinking of circular economy
51:00 The TNFD-LEAP Framework for financing
55:01 Jarrod's current endeavours
56:34 Investing in nature - are nature credits a thing?
58:24 The importance of communication and Jarrod's new company
1:02:18 Q&A Start
1:02:39 What does innovation mean to you?
1:05:28 Key event, person, book
1:08:20 Time Management
1:10:43 Favourite childhood memory
1:11:39 Biggest Challenge to Date
1:14:02 Advice for young professionals
1:15:56 What would you most like to be remembered for?
1:17:35 Where can people reach you?
1:18:31 Final Message
1:18:46 Outro

Detailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.
Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!

Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.

Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on:

• X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach
• Instagram: @petermbach87
• Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/