Today the winners of the 2019 edition of the Ciutat de Barcelona Awards have been known. These awards are a recognition of the creation, research and production carried out in Barcelona by creators or groups that work in the city or by institutions and organizations in Barcelona that promote or produce them.
The awards ceremony took place on 11th February, at 6:00 p.m., in the Saló de Cent. It will be an act conducted by the journalist Nuria Dias and under the artistic direction of Pep Salazar.
The jury, formed by Isabel Cacho, Frederic Bartumeus, Francisco J. Doblas, Josep Peñuelas and Silvia Acinas, unanimously agree to award the Earth and Environmental Sciences Award to scientific research work “Upper-plate rigidity determines depth-varying rupture behavior of megathrust earthquakes” by the authors Valentí Sallarès and César R. Ranero, of the Institute of Marine Sciences of Barcelona (ICM-CSIC) and ICREA, published in the journal Nature in 2019. This work proposes a new model with a paradigm shift considering elasticity. of the materials in the behavior of earthquakes, thus substantially improving the forecast of tsunamis.
The jury makes a special mention of the EGAR research group‘s work “Effectiveness of commercial face masks to reduce personal PM exposure”, because it visualizes the growing scientific effort to ensure air quality in the city of Barcelona. Teresa Moreno and Fulvio Amato collect the award on behalf of the research group.