The participants of the 6th IAHR Europe Congress will have the unique opportunity to talk about, among others, how to forecast floods or achieve the sustainable development in urban water supply systems. The congress agenda includes sessions and webinars combined with discussions with the audience. Europe Regional Hydro-Environment Heritage awards will be presented. This year’s congress, organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw University of Life Sciences - SGGW and PAS Institute of Geophysics, will be attended online by 400 experts from 53 countries.

The 6th IAHR Europe Congress will start online next week on February 15 and last till February 18. The congress will be convened under the theme "Hydro-Environment Research and Engineering. No Frames, No Borders". It is the Europe’s premier water engineering congress, attracting hydrologists and water professionals from all over the world.

During the event, participants will focus on such issues as climate change, extreme water phenomena, environmental hydraulics, hydraulic engineering and natural hazards. Aside from keynote speakers, leading water experts, the panelists will include representatives of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Program and the World Meteorological Organization.

“This congress is a great platform for the exchange of research ideas and the most recent knowledge in the broad area of hydrology, which is practiced by scientists representing various fields, for example: geophysics, mathematics, chemistry. Those researchers should cross boundaries between these disciplines, using various scientific tools to be able to look at water problems from different perspectives” - says Prof. Paweł Rowiński, Vice President of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The future of hydrological research

One of the consequences of climate change will be increased flooding. The participants of Tuesday's session "Enhanced Flood Risk Modelling" convened under the theme "Uncertainty, natural hazards and risks" will discuss the factors affecting floods, and flood detection techniques. They will focus on possible aspects of enhanced flood risk modelling, including the use of high-resolution data to predict urban floods, the impact of climate change on flood risk, and the application of technologies such as remote sensing, enhanced representation of risk and its management in flood modeling.

“If we look at the perspectives of European hydrological research, we may notice that an important issue is the good ecological status of rivers. Recent studies show that hydromorphology plays crucial role in achieving it. We know how flood control methods affect rivers, but in order to reduce the risk of flooding, not only our forecasts on water level rise in floodplains, but also the flexibility of hydraulic systems should be an important topic for future research" - says Prof. Tomasz Okruszko, Vice-Rector for Research at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and one of the expert of the Interdisciplinary Advisory Team for Climate Crisis at the President of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present generation, but at the same time takes into account the needs of the future generations. During the Wednesday session "Towards sustainability in urban waters systems", the speakers and the participants will discuss case studies on the sustainable urban drainage, increasing energy efficiency, and use of resources. They will look at research, methodologies and algorithms that can improve the development rates of urban water systems. They will analyze energy consumption in buildings, the relationship between water and energy in urban environments, and the possibilities of reusing water or optimizing water resources in urban systems, e.g. by power plants.

Live streams from Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels and Sheffield

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s congress will be held in new formula. Meetings, with strictly limited number of experts, will be broadcast from separate studios located at the PAS Staszic Palace in Warsaw, as well as at the PAS Scientific Centers in Berlin, Vienna and Brussels, and at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. The event will be streamed online and available to participants from all over the world. The Congress is organized in compliance with COVID-19 safety rules.

The opening session will take place on February 15 at 10.00 and will be broadcast on the PAS Facebook profile. Here, you can also watch award ceremony (Europe Regional Hydro-Environment Heritage and Industry Innovation Awards) and closing remarks. Webinars and sessions will be available to registered attendees only.

The 6th IAHR Europe Congress is organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw University of Life Sciences - SGGW and the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It will be held under the auspices of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research - IAHR.

For more information and IAHR agenda, please visit https://iahr2020.pl/.