Doyen of Japanese desalination retiring

Dr Totaro Goto, former managing director of the Water Re-use Desalination Center (WDRC) in Japan and a former member of the D&WR Editorial Board, is to retire from the center at the end of March.

After graduating in applied chemistry from Hokkaido University in 1953, Dr Goto worked for the Daiichi Rubber Company before moving to the National Institute of Material & Chemical Research, Minstry of Economics, Trade & Industry in 1956. There he became part of the National Project for Seawater Desalination and studied multi-stage flash desalination for ten years.

Following a transfer to the Hokkaido National Industrial Research Institute in 1982, he eventually started work at the WDRC, then known as the Water Re-use Promotion Center, in 1989. Here he extended his expertise into reverse osmosis and wastewater treatment and reuse.

He is author of countless papers and articles on desalination and the International Desalination Association gave him its Achievement Award in 1997. He will remain active in the Japan Desalination Association, but says that the IDA World Congress in Dubai in November 2009 will be his last.

One of Dr Goto’s most recent articles for D&WR can be found here.