Thursday, December 16, 2004
Sheraton Hotel, Hong Kong

Present

Welcome And Apologies

The Fifth Executive Committee Meeting of IAHR-APD was formally declared open and chaired by Prof. Joseph Hun-Wei Lee, Chairman of IAHR-APD at the Sheraton Hotel, Hong Kong on December 16, 2004 on the occasion of 4th International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics and 14th IAHR-APD Congress. Nine APD EC members, elected new EC member and proxies as well as the Secretary of IAHR-APD were present at the meeting. Two IAHR council members attended the APD EC meeting. One representative of KWRA and one representative of Hohai University joined the meeting on invitation. The Chairman extended warm welcome to all the attendants. Prof. Hin Fatt Cheong was unfortunately hospitalized just before the meeting started and was not able to attend. It was noted that Prof. Tae Hoon Yoon from Korea asked Prof. Jong-Kyu Lee for proxy and Prof. Ru-Yih Wang asked Prof. Ming-His Hsu for proxy. Mrs. V.M. Bendre from India asked apology for her not being able to attend the meeting. Prof. Abdul Aziz Ibrahim and Prof. Suphat Vongvisessomjai did not attend the meeting. Mr. Zantang Li, Secretary-general of Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society come to the meeting and said hello to all APD EC member. Prof. Lee expressed thanks to Mr. Li for his support to APD Secretariat, which was settled in Beijing now.

Confirmation of Minutes of last meeting
Prof. Joseph Lee reported that Prof. L.X. Wang circulated the minutes of last meeting before this meeting. A small meeting with Christopher George was held in Thessaloniki, Greece during 30th IAHR Congress and useful comments and suggestions were received in an IAHR-APD Forum during the Congress attended by 25 members . Suggestions on measures to enhance member-exchanges, collaborative projects, email communication as well as student excursion in the APD region, were received..

Chairman’s Report and Agenda of this Meeting
Prof. Joseph Lee, APD Chairman informed the members of his visits in last year to Seoul, Korea in Nov. 2003 and Bombay, India in January 2004, having discussions in Inchon University, Seoul National University and IIT on different issues.

Prof. Joseph Lee raised several items for this meeting, in addition to the next Congresses, i.e., endorsement of amended By-Laws; endorsement of principle of APD Award; election of new committee members; discussion on proposal about future APD activities and IAHR-APD Journal.

15th IAHR-APD Congress
Prof. Lee invited Prof. V. Sundar to report on preparation of next congress. Prof. Sundar said as the 14th APD EC meeting requested in Singapore, the 15th IAHR-APD Congress will be held during 7-10 Aug. 2006 in Chennai, the fourth largest city of India on south-east coast, the congress will be at IIT Madras with its Theme of “Water For Life”. Major topics will cover Surface Water Resources management; ground water resources management; Maritime Hydraulics; Eco-hydraulics & Social aspects etc. Prof. Sundar briefly introduced the conference facilities, accommodation condition, technical visit sites and cultural program etc. Prof. Sundar expressed his willingness to do his best for the next congress and called support form each APD EC member. Several ssues were discussed - including first announcement, congress’s financial supporters, web page etc. During the Congress Banquet on December 17, 2004 , nice slides of 15th IAHR APD Congress were shown to all audience for attracting participants.

16th IAHR-APD Congress
APD EC Secretariat received one application for holding 16th IAHR-APD Congress from Hohai University, Nanjing, China. Prof. Lee invited Prof. X. N. Zhang from Hohai to make a speech. Prof. X. N. Zhang expressed his willingness to host 16th IAHR Congress in 2008, the University will fully support LOC’s work for this congress. Hohai University is a Comprehensive University with emphasizing on hydraulics science and engineering, water resources and environmental hydraulics etc. The university possesses suitable facilities to hold this conference. After discussion, APD EC decided to wait for more proposals of holding 16th APD Congress from other countries and regions, such as Mekong River area, in order to encourage people from Laos, Cambodia to join APD activities. Proposals are welcomed to submit to the APD Secretariat until August 2005. The decision on 16th APD Congress’ venue will be made in an APD EC meeting in Seoul during 31 IAHR Congress.

A common opinion was agreed that the time schedule of selecting future congress venue should be to initiate discussion of proposals to host APD Congress 4 years before the event and to make the decision 3 years before - generally on the occasions of APD or IAHR conferences.

Endorsement of By-Laws amended
Prof. L.X. Wang explained several amendments in the IAHR-APD By-Laws, which involves the name of IAHR Organization, a few corrections on sentences, and most importantly the change in the number of APD EC members from 9 to 12. (Although it was already done since the last EC meeting. The current EC consists of 12 members). After a brief discussion, the amended IAHR APD By-Laws was endorsed by this meeting, where 8 members and their proxies were present, which means 2/3 of EC members agreed on this issue. The new set-up of By-laws will be proposed to IAHR Council for approval. These amended By-laws will be in effect when approved by IAHR Council.

Endorsement of principle of APD Award and IAHR-APD AWARD
Because “IAHR-APD Award 2004” has been circulated to EC members by Email in advance, Chairman invited comments on the principle of APD Award. Prof. A das Gupta explained the process of formation of Award committee. According the “Founding Statement of APD Award”, the award committee should be formed by APD Executive Committee and approved by IAHR main body. Normally, LOC of the current APD congress suggests a name-list of the Award Committee to APD secretariat, which is than sent to each EC Member and IAHR Executive Director for acceptation. Prof. Joseph Lee explained the formation of the Award Committee of this conference and introduced paper selection work done by the committee. The committee composition has a wide representation from different regions and relevant aspect and take advantage of the experts present at the conference. The EC meeting approved the principle of Award Committee. The Award Founding Statement and Guideline will be circulated again and put on the web page.

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). Three best papers were finally selected by the committee and endorsed by APD EC Meeting just before the closing Banquet where the best papers award were to be presented.

The best paper award of the host country (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.
Two best paper awards from outside the host country 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, Japan
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, Germany.

In addition to the Best Paper Award, other possible awards were suggested, such as honorable membership, young student award and achievement award etc. For these kinds of awards, a few issues were discussed, the target area of awards, possible awards content (certificate, plaque, money and other things) etc. Further work has to be done to have initiation and guidelines. But it should be endorsed by IAHR Council, just as any newly introduced activities, before putting it into practice. EC invited members to contact the Secretariat if they have further suggestions .

Election of new Committee
Referring to the article 6.1 of the IAHR-APD By-Laws, 7 members among the 12 members of the current APD Executive Committee, have served in the Committee since 1996 and 1998. Email communication was conducted by the Secretariat to the 7 members and 5 responses were obtained. Prof. Sri Harto and Prof. HF Cheong have served as the APD EC Chairman once, respectively, both of them will serve as the EC member for one term more, until 2006. Prof. K. Suzuki, Prof. Ru-Yih Wang and Prof. Tae Hoon Yoon will step off and they recommended Prof. Hitoshi Tanaka from Tohoku University, Prof. Ming-Hsi Hsu from Taiwan University and Prof. Jong-Kyu Lee from Hanyang University as the new members. The new members’ resume had been sent to APD EC members by Email. All of the three are accepted and formally elected as the new IAHR-APD EC members and endorsed by members.

Prof. Abdul Aziz Ibrahim and Prof. Suphat Vongvisessomjai had not given any response to the enquiry about their EC Service. It was understood that there are some difficulties in serving as EC member due to retirement or job-changing and they would step off the APD EC. Mrs V.M. Bendre from India has not attended any of the APD Congress since she was elected as EC member in 2002. It was understood she had some difficulties or no interests in APD activities. So Mrs. V. M. Bendre was not elected as the APD EC member for the next term.

Discussion was conducted about the number of EC members, and conclusion was made that IAHR-APD EC will have 12 member plus 1 co-opted member when desire, which is in accordance with article 6.1 of the By-Laws. 3 more new members should be considered. Suggestion was made such that Prof. A das Gupta will contact with Thailand and Malaysia to have 1 nomination; Prof. Z. Y. Wang will contact with Iran to have 1 nomination and Prof. N. Tamai will contact with Australia to have 1 nomination. Prof. Z. Y. Wang reported later in December 2004 and recommended Dr. Farhad Yazdandoost from Water Research Institute, Tehran, Iran to serve as new EC member, whose resume was circulate and no objection was received.

The results of new office of APD Executive Committee will be reported to IAHR Secretariat for ratification from IAHR Council.

Proposal about future APD activities by K Suzuki
The Proposal by K Suzuki, G.F. Li and L.X. Wang was distributed before the meeting and explained by Prof. K. Suzuki at the meeting. The issue on enhancing future APD activities has been discussed several times, but no action has been done. The proposal mainly consist of the followings:
a) Introduction of major hydraulic projects in the river basins of Asian countries to the IAHR members in Asia by Email, which should be collected through the IAHR members in each country.
b) Organization of field trips to some of the major hydraulic projects in Asia by students as well as researchers.
c) Organization of research groups for some research projects about Asian river basins, such as debris flow in Nepal, Flooding in Bangladesh etc.
d) Support of symposium on the research projects organized above by IAHR-APD.
Possibility of getting fund for the research projects should be discussed.
e) Organization of IAHR-APD Forum during the biennial Congress of APD-IAHR, to discuss collaborative researches among APD researchers and future activities of IAHR-APD

It is agreed that the proposal is a good one. Interests were shown on the meeting from Japan Committee of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University and Hong Kong University. Student excursion group could be organized first to visit Three Gorges Project of China or some Indian Projects. We should try to start and make a success story, although some difficulties exist in funding. Suggestion was also made for IAHR-APD senior members to write articles about hydraulic projects in their own countries and sent to APD Secretariat with pictures. The Secretarial then should put them on IAHR-APD web-site.

IAHR-APD Journal
Prof. Joseph Lee raised the question of IAHR-APD Journal to be discussed on the APD EC meeting. Some discussions had been done between Joseph Lee, Christopher George and Korean professors from Korea Water Resources association (KWRA), who is willing to financially support the Journal for first 5 years. IAHR Council meeting in Greece appointed a group consisting of 3 people to look into this proposal. Prof. Il Won Seo from KWRA introduced the setting up of the new journal, which was based on a quarterly English Journal Water Resources Engineering Research published by KWRA since 2000. Discussion was rigorous and some important points were brought about by attendants: to select an editorial board, who should be a strong, energetic driver; to set up a working group to make general policy for the new Journal; to seek more financial supporter, in addition to KWRA; to carefully consider Journal’s field, broad enough (for example to cover maritime hydraulics) but not too much overlap with other Journals. A suggestion of naming the Journal as “IAHR-APD-KWRA Journal” was accepted by EC members and Prof. Seo. The general idea of having this Journal was agreed and more suggestions and comments are welcomed which can be sent to the APD Secretariat. Further decision will be made at next ADP EC meeting during 2005 Seoul IAHR Congress.

Group photo

15th IAHR-APD Executive Committee Meeting on Dec. 16, 2004 during the 14th IAHR-APD Congress