Invitation

The Local Organising Committee of the 5th International Conference on Hydro-Science and -Engineering (ICHE-2002) has the pleasure and honour to invite all interested persons to participate in the conference to be held on September 18-21, 2002 in Warsaw, Poland.

The Conference is organised by the Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Environmental Engineering, under the patronage of H.E. the Minister of Environment of Poland and under the sponsorship of the International Association for Hydraulic Research (IAHR). The ICHE-2002 will extend the series of biennial conferences started in Washington, D.C. (1993), and continued in Beijing (1995), Cottbus/Berlin (1998) and Seoul (2000). These conferences have acted as a forum for reporting the latest advancements, reviewing the state of the art, and exchanging ideas and experience in the field of hydro-science and hydro-engineering. Special emphasis has been laid on the transfer of technologies (including IT) and expertise among research scientists, practice engineers, management planners and policy makers. All previous conferences were highly valued by the participants.

Besides traditional scientific presentations and discussions the Conference activities will stem from and be developed around a general theme that will be "educational and professional aspects in hydro-science and engineering". This will be obtained through a number of keynote lectures and parallel events such as specific courses, meetings, seminars and open debates devoted to the university education, to the life-long (continuous) education, to the sustainable networking of laboratories and to the creation of sustainable networks of individuals active professionally in "water-field".

It is planned that these lectures, events and debates will be based on the state of the art as presented not only during technical sessions of ICHE-2002 itself but also at two more specific Conferences sponsored by European Division of International Association for Hydraulic Engineering and Research: Hydroinformatics 2002 (1-5 July 2002, Cardiff, UK) and River Flow 2002 (4-6 September 2002, Louvain, Belgium). The dates of venues of all three meetings are close and it is hoped that their sum will be representative of the state of the art. To make the debate fruitful, it is planned that the texts of papers presented at these Conferences will be made available in Warsaw to the ICHE-2002 participants. Moreover, the Scientific Committees of these Conferences will be invited to present in Warsaw the main conclusions of their respective Conferences.