The week-long conference held from 26th of June - 1st of July, 2011, themed Balance and Uncertainty: Water in a Changing World brought together not only the 34th World Congress of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research, but also the 33rd National Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and the 10th National Conference on Hydraulic in Water Engineering. The conference was held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre and presented a unique opportunity for delegates from all around the world to share ideas and research activities. A total of 590 papers were accepted for publication in the conference proceedings.

WRL was well represented with four presentations being given by WRL staff members canvasing a broad range of topics from groundwater hydraulics and hydrology, to floods, to ecohydraulics. Grantley Smith’s presentation of Development of Appropriate Criteria for the Safety and Stability of Persons and Vehicles in Floods created substantial interest as the results presented form part of the Australian Rainfall & Runoff Revision Project.

This conference included technical tours, in which delegates were shown prominent water infrastructure in the Brisbane area; and a conference dinner was held, which included the hydrologic games. State battled state in the games to see who could build the tallest sand castle with the most innovative water feature. Queensland took out the title, with Conrad Wasko contributing to New South Wales relinquishing the mantle of hydrologic games champions. The highlight of the conference social calendar was a Students and Young Professionals Night sponsored by NCCARF and organised by Associate Professor Ron Cox. This night presented the younger conference delegates with an opportunity to meet their fellow peers in a friendly social environment and establish networks with fellow engineers who will no doubt be future leaders in the engineering field.

List of Papers:

Busuttil, D., Peirson, W.L., Lee, G.A., Waite, C. and Onesemo, P. (2011) Laboratory Assessment of the Performance of Porous Coverings in Evaporation Mitigation

Mariani, A. and Glamore, W.C. (2011) Fate and Transport of Suspended Particulate Discharged into Marine Environments via Ocean Outfalls

Rahman, P., Sharma, A. and Smith, G.P. (2011) Estimating Design Floods for Gauged Urban Catchments under Climate Change Conditions-Case Study: Cooks River, Sydney

Shand, T.D., Smith, G.P., Cox, R.J. and Blacka, M.J. (2011) Development of Appropriate Criteria for the Safety and Stability of Persons and Vehicles in Floods

Wasko, C.D., Timms, W.A. and Miller, B.M. (2011) Groundwater Modelling in a Highly Seasonal, Fractured Rock Environment using FEFLOW 

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