4th International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics (ISEH) and
14th IAHR-APD Congress
The 14th Congress of the Asia and Pacific Division of IAHR was hosted by the Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong on December 15-18, 2004. The Congress was held jointly in parallel with the 4th International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics (ISEH) at the Sheraton Hotel, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The main theme of the conference is “Sustainable Water Management in the Asia-Pacific Region”. More than 350 scientists, engineers and research workers participated in the busy meeting which proved to be a successful forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences on recent developments in environmental hydraulics and water management issues.
The Symposium and Congress was officially opened on December 15 by Professor Joseph H.W. Lee, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee and Chairman of IAHR-APD, and Professor N. Tamai, Vice-President of IAHR Council. Professor L.C. Tsui, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Hong Kong welcomed the delegates with a Welcome Speech. Another Welcome Address was given by Dr. M.J. Broom representing the Director of Environmental Protection of the Hong Kong SAR Government.
The technical sessions started with the keynote lecture “Water in a changing climate” which was delivered by Prof. J. Imberger. This was followed by the keynote lecture “Sustainable utilisation of water resources and hydropower resources in China”. The speaker was Prof. C.K. Zhang, Vice-President of CHES (Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society) and President of HoHai University, China. Two other keynote lectures were delivered by Professor H.J.S. Fernando and Professor A.E. Mynett on the second and third days of the conference, respectively. The titles are, respectively, “Hydraulic phenomena in urban atmospheric environments and their role in contaminant dispersion” and “Artificial intelligence techniques in environmental hydrodynamics: The role of expert knowledge”. All keynote lectures were excellently delivered with noble and latest knowledge. The ten invited lectures were equally outstanding and the speakers were all prominent figures in hydraulics. During the first three days of the conference, about 280 contributing papers were presented in five to seven parallel sessions. The papers covered all areas of environmental hydraulics and water resource engineering and management. Areas with many papers included eco-hydraulics, urban stormwater management, flood forecasting and prevention, sediment dynamics, hydrodynamic and water quality models, mixing and transport, jets and plumes, hydraulic structures, and open channel flows. Held on December 17 was a special session “Field studies and model verification” was convened by the State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics on High Speed Flows, at Sichuan University, China.
The welcoming reception held in the evening of December 15 was crowded with delegates heatedly engaged in social conversation. The conference banquet was held on December 17 in the Ballroom of Sheraton Hotel. Banquet addresses were given by Dr. James Kwan, President of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers and Professor N. Tamai. This was followed by unexpected Indian dances accompanying the Chinese cuisine after which Prof. V. Sundar introduced Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Chennai) as the host of the next IAHR-APD Congress in 2006. On December 18, the last day of the conference, the delegates went off to a technical visit. Among the five different technical visits offered, the most popular one was the one going to Penny’s Bay Recalmation Site where the delegates witnessed the construction of some 60 hectares of land for the Disneyland Theme Park and the implementation of environmental impact monitoring and mitigation measures for the protection of water quality.
The best paper awards were presented at the conference banquet. The best paper award of the host country which is China including Taiwan and Hong Kong went to the paper “A vertical stability theory and model for red tide forecasting” by K. Wong and J.H.W. Lee. There were two winners of the best paper award from outside the host country because the Award Committee decided that the two papers were equally excellent. The award went to the papers “A field study on near-bottom turbulence and resuspension of fine sediment in the Tone River Estuary” by K. Shimizu, T. Ishikawa and M. Irie and “The effects of bottom settlement, vegetation, and macro-roughness on the erosion stability of the relocated river Inde” by P. Kamrath, S. Rubbert and J. Kongeter. The Award Committee for the selection of the best papers consisted of the following members: H.F. Cheong, R. Falconer, A. Das Gupta, P. Julien, K.M. Lam, B.S. Pani, N. Tamai, Y.K. Tung, Z.Y. Wang, and A.J. Odgaard (Chairman). Prior to the conference, each Committee member received 15 papers in each category that the Local Organizing Committee had determined should be considered for award. Using the two criteria of innovation/novelty and potential broad impact, the Committee ranked these papers and identified five top ranked papers in each category. At the beginning of the conference a third criterion was added: oral presentation. During the conference, the members of the Committee attended and evaluated the presentations of the top ranked papers. The presenters were evaluated on clarity, insight, and depth of understanding, including the presenter’s ability to respond to questions from the audience. The Committee met before the conference banquet to make the final recommendation of awardees to the APD Executive Committee for endorsement.
All the keynote, invited and contributing papers were published by A.A. Balkema Publishers in a hard-bound two-volume Proceedings (ISBN: 04-1536-546-5).
Joseph H.W. Lee
Redmond Chair of Civil Engineering
Chairman, Local Organising Committee
Chairman, IAHR-APD Executive Committee
