The Indian Society for Hydraulics (ISH) has conferred the prestigious 'ISH LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD for the year 2020' to Dr Nayan Sharma, Adjunct Professor, IIT Roorkee and Distinguished Professor, Shiv Nadar University, Institution of Eminence in India for his significant contribution made in the field of Water Resources Engineering in general and Hydraulics in particular.
The award was conferred during the inaugural session of the Hydro-2020 International Conference on 26th March 2021 held in the National Institute of Technology Rourkela. The award carries a Memento with Citation and a token cash prize of Rupees Ten thousand. Dr Nayan Sharma is the first Assamese to receive the coveted 'ISH LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD' from The Indian Society for Hydraulics.
Highlighting various achievements of Dr Nayan Sharma, the Citation makes special mention of his innovative contributions made on advanced dam safety technology enabling added reservoir storage space for multi-purposes like flood control and enhancement in spillways capacity, riverbank erosion control and navigation channel development by harnessing intrinsic streamflow energy.
In recent years, Dr Sharma has successfully applied the innovative hydraulically efficient Piano Key Weir technology as a First in India in a major hydel dam project of Himachal Pradesh achieving sizable cost savings, as well as Submerged Vanes technique to sustainably channelize a reach of the Ganga River mobilizing stream power without the use of dredging for Inland Waterways Authority of India attaining fruitful results.
The Citation further records that Dr Sharma was the recipient of the coveted Indo-Swiss Bilateral Research Initiative Award as Visiting Professor at EPFL, the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and was Honorary Professor of River Science at the University of Nottingham of the UK. In 2016 The Indian Society of Hydraulics conferred him JALVIGYAN PURASHKAR and S.N. Gupta Memorial Awards recognizing his contributions to applied hydraulics.