Wednesday, August 7, 2002 Mariana Mandarin, Singapore

Present

WELCOME AND APOLOGIES

The Fourteenth Executive Committee Meeting of the APD-IAHR was chaired and formally declared open by Professor Sri Harto, Chairman of APD-IAHR at the Mariana Mandarin Hotel, Singapore. Prof. Sri Harto extended warm welcome to all members present. Special welcome is extended to Dr. Christopher George who represented IAHR as its Executive Director. It was noted that Prof. Tae Hoon Yoon from Korea, Prof. Abdul Aziz Ibrahim from Malaysia, and Mrs. V.M. Bendre from India could not join the E.C. meeting. Prof. Jong-Kyu Lee represented Prof. Yoon, Dr. Lee Say-Chong represented Prof. Ibrahim and Prof. V. Sundar represented Mrs. Bendre in this meeting. Mr. Wang Lian-Xiang, former Member of E.C. of APD-IAHR, attended the meeting on invitation.

THIRTEENTH CONGRESS OF APD-IAHR

Dr. John Junke Guo, Chairman of LOC briefed the members on the attendance at the Congress and on the technical papers.

With regard to attendance at the Congress, altogether 291 delegates coming from 25 countries registered for the Congress, with 37% of participants from Japan and 30% Chinese delegates. Altogether 270 abstracts were received out of which 200 papers were published in the proceedings in 2 volumes. Dr. Guo also reported on the financial situation and expressed thanks to Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society (CHES) and China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR) for their generous support.

VOTE OF THANKS TO THE LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE OF THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

Prof. Sri Harto, on behalf of the Executive Committee extended a vote of thanks to the Local Organizing Committee, under the Chairmanship of Dr. John Junke Guo for the excellent organization of the Thirteenth Congress.

MINUTES OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING HELD IN BANGKOK, THAILAND, NOVEMBER 14, 2000

On the initiation of Prof. Sri Harto, the members, without much discussion, endorsed the minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand, November 14, 2000.

BUSINESS ARISING

As a follow up, Prof. Sri Harto raised three issues for discussion: finalization of the venue of future Congresses, other water related regional associations being formed and the wish of Iranian delegates for participation in APD activities.

Reference was given to the decision of the Thirteenth Executive Committee meeting held in Bangkok to give an opportunity to the Surface Water Modeling Center (SWMC) of Bangladesh to host the Thirteenth Congress of APD-IAHR, provided the Center can mobilize resources to organize the event. This did not work out and the Secretariat had to go for the alternative. It was also agreed in the Bangkok meeting that if the SWMC failed to mobilize resources, the next possible host country would be Hong Kong with Singapore as the fall back. The process of inquiry and checking took quite some time and finally the event has to be organized in Singapore within the limited time available. A two-year time for preparation is normally needed for organizing this type of event and the EC members were of the opinion to get the line up for the next two Congresses finalized in the meeting.

It was brought to the attention of all EC members that a new Association named as Asia Pacific Association for Hydrology and Water Resources (APHW) will be launched in September 2002 with the first International Conference to be held in March 2003. Also it was indicated by the Executive Director of IAHR that there would be series of regional conferences on coastal engineering. Members expressed concern on duplication of similar activities in too many regional events of the same nature. It was agreed to have a dialogue with the initiating groups in order to have closer relation and to look into the possibility of jointly organizing this type of professional activities.

Two delegates from Iran attending the Thirteenth Congress expressed their desire to actively participate in the APD activities. The Executive Director of IAHR confirmed this indicating that they have a very well organized hydraulic association and the membership from Iran joining IAHR is also increasing signifying their interest in professional activities of IAHR. It was agreed to consider this aspect while reviewing the membership of APD executive committee.

APD CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Prof. Sri Harto, APD Chairman informed the members of his involvement in IAHR activities over the last two-year period after the Bangkok Congress. He was unable to join the IAHR Congress in Beijing in 2001 and he thanked Prof. Lee for representing APD in the IAHR Council meeting and presenting the APD Report. He also informed the members of his involvement on behalf of APD in organizing International Conference on Fisheries and Tropical River Hydraulics in Indonesia in 2001 that was attended by 75 participants coming from 7 countries.

APD SECRETARY’S REPORT

Prof. Das Gupta, in his report informed the members on the process of getting the officials of SWMC to confirm their endorsement to host the Thirteenth Congress of APD-IAHR, which was not successful. He informed the members of his realization that their normal functions are not geared to this type of activities of organizing congresses at the international level. Also, it was felt that there were some constraints on accommodation at the international level as there are one or two hotels in Dhaka at that level of standard. He informed the members on his preparation for the Beijing IAHR Congress by providing a report on APD activities; however, he was unable to join the Congress because of some family obligation. Also he informed the members on his initiative of getting the endorsement of a Vietnamese official (AIT Alumni) to host APD-IAHR and the official has put forward a proposal for consideration by the APD Committee.

VENUE FOR FUTURE APD CONGRESSES

The Chairman of ADD-IAHR, Prof. Sri Harto opened the discussion by mentioning two proposals received for organizing the Congress, one from India and the other from Vietnam. He also referred to the resolution of the Thirteenth EC meeting in Bangkok that in case the SWMC of Bangladesh is unable to organize the thirteenth Congress of APD, the possibility of having it in Hong Kong will be sought. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, it was not possible and the Congress is now being held in Singapore.

With regard to the proposal from Vietnam, members expressed their reservation as there had been very limited or almost no participation from Vietnam in all past Congresses. This has been attributed to the level of financial support from their organization, however, considering the problem of hydraulics, hydrology and water resources development is concerned, the idea of organizing a Congress in the Mekong Sub-Region would be a good effort from the professional perspective. With detail deliberation and support of Prof. Lee for organizing the APD Congress, it was unanimously endorsed that the Fourteenth Congress of APD-IAHR will be in Hong Kong in December 2004. The Indian representative present in the meeting provided elaboration on facilities available for organizing the APD Congress at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. With this understanding, the Executive Committee endorsed that the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in India will organize the Fifteenth Congress of APD-IAHR and it was suggested that the first announcement of the Congress be ready by the time of Fourteenth Congress in Hong Kong.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

The composition of the current Executive Committee was approved by the IAHR Council in 2001 and was effective from January 2002. Reference was given to the Article 6.1 of the by-law on Executive Committee: “Every two years at the IAHR-APD biennial regional congress a new committee shall be elected, so that the term of office of each committee member shall be two years. The entire committee shall retire at the day the newly elected committee enters upon its duties. No member shall serve more than three consecutive terms, except for a committee member appointed as division chairman or vice-chairman after six years on the committee. The division chairman and vice-chairman shall not serve more than two consecutive terms in that office.” The implication of this article was that the term of current committee would expire by 2003 and since the next executive committee meeting will be in 2004, a new executive committee structure must be recommended by this meeting so that there would be a committee in place to conduct the executive committee meeting. In order to avoid this complicacy, it was decided that the current executive committee continues unto 2004.

Further discussion was held with regard to the continuation of the current executive committee members by referring to the clause given in Article 6.1 as stated above that the term of office of each committee member shall be two years and no member shall serve more that three consecutive terms. Individual members like Prof. Cheong Hin Fatt and Prof. Ru-Yih Wang expressed their desire to step down and indicated that they would put forward their recommended candidates. It was agreed that Prof. Yoon would be requested to put forward a replacement against his place in the executive committee and the timing of this endorsement will coincide with the IAHR biennial congress to be held in Seoul, Korea in 2005. Also the members were agreeing to the proposal of inviting one member from Iran as Co-opted member.

With regard to the position of Chairman and Vice-Chairman, the committee members decided to elect the new Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the executive committee and recommended that their term of office should be starting January 2003. On the recommendation of Prof. Zhao-Yin Wang, the executive committee member endorsed the appointment of Prof. Joseph Hun-wei Lee from Hong Kong as the new Chairman and Prof. Ashim Das Gupta as new Vice-Chairman of APD-IAHR.

IAHR-APD AWARD

The IAHR-APD Award Committee 2002 which was endorsed by the Executive Committee comprised:

Cheong Hin-Fatt, Chairman
N. Jothi Sankar
Iehisa Nezu
Wang Lian-Xiang
Kuo Jan-Tai
Lee Say-Chong
Pierre Y. Julien
Roger Falconer

The Chairman of IAHR-APD Award Committee, Professor Cheong Hin-Fatt reported on the procedure and deliberation followed by the Committee Members in selecting two best papers presented from the host country and the other two best papers presented from outside the host country.

The best paper award from the host country was given to the following two papers:
“SEA: A robust evolutionary algorithm for rainfall-runoff model calibration” by N. Muttil and S.-Y. Liong, and
“1st and 2nd order approximate solutions of Reynolds equations in 3-D channels” by S.-Q. Yang.

The best paper award from outside the host country was given to the following two papers:
“Measurement and modeling of evapo-transpiration during plant growth” by H. Higashi and T. Oka, and
“A study on hydraulic characteristics of vegetative groins” by K. Sugawara, T. Abe, A. Aihara and T. Takahashi.

APD SECRETARIAT

In the Thirteenth Executive Committee meeting of APD-IAHR at Bangkok, 2000, Prof. Ashim Das Gupta informed the members to consider the future of APD Secretariat as he will retire from his present job with AIT in six year time. It was decided at that time to deliberate on this in the next executive committee meeting in 2002.

The Committee received two proposals, one from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) for continuation of the Secretariat at AIT, which is a regional international institute for higher learning and the other from the President of the Council of Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society (CHES) to set up the Secretariat at the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), which is a national research institution of China. The Committee noted down all the points put forward by AIT for the continuation of the Secretariat at the Water Engineering and Management Program of the School of Civil Engineering. Along the same line CHES also indicated their growing involvement with the activities of IAHR and the thrust they would put forward in setting up the Secretariat in terms of human and financial resources. The Committee considered both proposals favorably and voted in favor of China with 4 votes for China, 3 votes for AIT and 2 members decided to stay neutral. The Committee finally decided to move the APD-IAHR Secretariat to IWHR, China staring January 2003.