Program details courtesy of the Congress of the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research.

Engineering and Applied Science Dean Attends Water Engineering Conference

August 14. 2009 -Dean Rob Ettema of the University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Applied Science recently attended the 33rd Congress of the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR) in Vancouver. According to the IAHR program, the Congress theme – Water Engineering for a Sustainable Environment - addresses the central roles of hydraulic engineering and hydroinformatics in water engineering for a sustainable environment, and considers how these roles link to broader aspects of environmental sustainability of watersheds and coasts. Dean Ettema serves as the Congress Technical Program Chair.

The Technical Program was structured in six topics that address major water engineering considerations associated with the sustainable well being of the environment of local, regional, and global scales. Topics include water engineering to facilitate the built environment in which people largely live and to protect and enhance the natural environment that encompasses the built environment. Tracks and special seminars of invited papers within the tracks focus on recent research findings, effective education, advances in engineering practice, and hydroinformatic and policy issues were also discussed.

Guest speakers included Timothy Killeen, Assistant Director for the Geosciences, National Science Foundation on “Global Climate-Process Issues and Their Impacts on Water Availability” and Joe Monaghan, Monash University, Australia on “The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Method.” In addition, Shan Schmitz, Senior Vice President of CH2M Hill and Program Manager of the Panama Canal Expansion Program gave a keynote lecture on “The Extension of the Panama Canal.”

The conference was organized by three North American water-engineering entities: The Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE-EWRI); The Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE-COPRI); and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE).