2001-2005
Kuniyoshi Takeuchi is the Advisor of International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) under the auspices of UNESCO, Public Works Research Institute (PWRI), Tsukuba, Japan and Professor Emeritus of Yamanashi University. He served as the Founding Director of ICHARM from March 2006 to September 2014. He was a professor of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Yamanashi University for 30 years till March 2007.
He got his BS (1966), MS (1968) and Dr.Eng. (1982) in Civil Engineering at University of Tokyo, and Ph.D. (1972) in City and Regional Planning at University of North Carolina. His major field is hydrology and water resources. Interest includes reservoir operation, hydrological statistics, stochastic hydrology, distributed hydrological models, lake hydrology, radar and satellite hydrology etc. He served as a principal investigator of various hydrological projects including those focused on river basin management in the Asian Monsoon Region.
Currently he is involved in water-related disaster management, risk assessment, hydrological forecasting for early warning and climate change impact assessment on hydro-met extremes. He is the chair of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics Commission on Geophysical Risk and Sustainability (IUGG GeoRisk Commission) since 2007 and a member and a vice-chair of Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Scientific Committee since 2009.
He has long been incorporating with International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS). He served as President of International Commission on Water Resource Systems (ICWRC) for 1991-1995, Vice President of IAHS for 1995-1999 and President of IAHS for 2001-2005. During his presidency, he dedicated initiating the IAHS decadal project Predictions in Ungaged Basins (PUB). He has also been engaged in teh UNESCO International Hydrological Program (IHP). In 1992, he engaged in initiating the IHP Regional Steering Committee for Southeast Asia and the Pacific(RSC) and served as its secretary for 1993-1999. He also served as the chairperson of IHP Inter-Governmental Council for 1998-2000.
He is a recipient of various professional awards including Japan Society of Hydrology and Water Resources (JSHWR) Distinguished Contribution Award (2000), Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) International Contribution Award (2009) and IAHS-UNESCO-WMO International Hydrology Prize (2012).