Civil
Engineering


Dr. Brian W. Baetz
B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc. (Toronto),
Ph.D. (Duke), P. Eng., FCSCE

 Office JHE 333
Extension 27214
Email address baetz@mcmaster.ca

 Professor and Chair, Civil Engineering

Director, Engineering and Society Program

Director, Engineering and International Studies Program

Water and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests

  • Sustainable Communities and Sustainable Infrastructure
Specific Research Interests and Activities:

Planning and Design of Sustainable Communities

Canadian municipalities are being forced to reassess how they develop and how they provide a wide range of infrastructure elements and services. This avenue of research is focussing on the development of decision support systems to aid in the evaluation and design of municipal infrastructure from a sustainability perspective. Please take a look at the web page of the Sustainable Community Research Group.

Publications

  • Nishat, S., Guo, Y. and B.W. Baetz (2008).  Climate Change and Urban Grassland Moisture Conditions in South-Western Ontario, Journal of Environmental Informatics, Vol. 12, No.2, pp. 105-119.

  • M.C. Kirnbauer, W.A. Kenney, C.J. Churchill and B.W. Baetz (2009). A Prototype Decision Support System for Sustainable Urban Tree Planting Programs, Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 3-19.

  • A.F. Cupido, B.W. Baetz, A. Pujari, and S. Chidiac “Evaluating Institutional Green Building Policies: A Mixed-Methods Approach”, Journal of Green Building, Vol. 5, No. 1, Winter 2010, pp. 115-130.

  • S. Nishat, Y. Guo and B.W. Baetz “Antecedent Soil Moisture Conditions of Different Soil Types in South-Western Ontario, Canada”, Hydrological Processes, Vol. 24, Issue 17, 15 August 2010, pp.2417-2424.

  • S. Nishat, Y. Guo, and B. W. Baetz (2011). "Relative Importance of Input Parameters in Soil Moisture Dynamics Modeling." Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, doi:10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000461, June 2011.