Regional Division family meetings were arranged on the Sept. 15, 2005 during XXXI IAHR Congress in COEX, Seoul. Prof. Joseph H-W Lee, Chairman of APD, chaired the APD family meeting (or APD Forum). Around 30 persons attended the meeting from 7 countries (India, Korea, Iran, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and China).

At the beginning, J H-W Lee addressed 3 targets of APD for next 5 years: to organize biannual congress as the leading event; to promote exchange and communication among APD members through workshop, site visit and publication etc.; to develop strong links with other international and regional organizations. Then Lee briefly reported APD ExCo members’ activities in the past year. The purposes of the family meeting were mainly in 3 aspects: to hear what expect from APD and how to advance APD; to introduce 15th IAHR-APD Congress; to discuss APD Journal. Other relevant issues were also to be discussed. The main points, which were addressed and discussed in the meeting, are in the following.

1. Journal
The IAHR Council already approved to publish a Journal of APD, and it will get financial support from KWRA for the first 5 years. It is still in the stage of formation. It should be on global basis with regional focus (Asian and Pacific), which will have an international editorial board. Intention is to encourage and attract young scholars and PhD students to publish their theses. Some people suggested using the title of “Asian Water” for the journal.

2. 15th APD Congress
Dr K. Murali from LOC of the 15th IAHR-APD Congress briefly introduced their preparation work for the congress. He announced that: a), The dead line for submitting abstracts is extended to 15 October; b), the congress’ topics are widened, new topics, such as flood, sediment, river hydraulics will be added; c), more abstracts are encouraged to submit, esp. those from Australia, New Zealand, Philippine, Vietnam etc.; d), 250 participants or more are expectable, and sponsorship are seeking mainly among Indian organizations with foreign donors being specially welcomed.

3. Field trip
APD is going regularly organize field trip or site visit in our APD family. Field trip would provide people in water sector esp. young engineers and students chances to learn from different countries about hydraulic research applications in water resources development, river management, water environment protection etc. A survey was mad in the meeting, about 15 sheets were returned. A statistics are listed below: a), 3 most interesting countries to visit: China, Japan and Australia; b), organization types to visit in order of preference: project, research institute, university, consulting company; c), places to visit: water resources authority (Australia), groundwater project, wetland and river restoration, dam and hydropower, coastal project, research lab; d), duration and season: 7 to 10 days in June to September; e), field trip may be a combination of technical and sightseeing and may connect with APD congress or other events. The survey would be a reference guide for organizing work later.

Prof Zhaoyin Wang shortly introduces a field trip organized by WASER and APD in August 2005 to Three Gorges Projects. 24 participants took part in. The program included participants’ presentation and discussion, project site visit, expert’s lectures, as well as beautiful scenic spots. The 2006 field trip will be scheduled in June to Yellow River. Tentative program includes Yellow River Waterfall (Hukou), Xxiaolangdi Project flood discharging and Terre Cotta in XiAn, etc.

4. Miscellaneous
·Dr. Gregory de Costa from New Zealand expressed wishes to organize APD congress in New Zealand or Australia. This idea was warmly welcomed
·IAHR-APD website has been established: www.iahr.org.cn. All IAHR members in APD are welcome to visit the website and make contribution to it.
·River list was introduced. Information on any local water matters is welcome to written to the river list network.

Appendix: Name list of APD family meeting attendants