Committee on Ecohydraulics

The environment, especially in terms of water quality, pollution and protection of ecosystems, is one of major concerns of modern civilisation. Although research in this field has very much increased in the past years, a lot of work still has to be done in order to improve our knowledge and capacity to understand phenomena, predict the effect of human works on natural ecosystems, and find solutions for maintaining acceptable water quality and biodiversity in our marine and continental environment.

In fact knowledge does not progress as quickly as one could hope. One of the reasons is that co-operation and exchange between scientists involved in these problems are not sufficient. Ecology is a very multidisciplinary domain where ecologists, physicists, hydraulicians, hydrologists, climatologists, chemists, biologists, toxicologists, statisticians clearly need to work together, which is rather rarely the case at present.

Another reason is that nature is very complex and the study of aquatic ecosystems requires a lot of data and field measurements in order to understand and simulate natural phenomena. Numerical models have become more and more precise and sophisticated, but they are very often not worthwhile using because of the lack of data to feed and calibrate them.

All these reasons have recently led IAHR to create a new Committee on “Eco-Hydraulics” in order to encourage collaboration between hydraulicians, biologists and chemists. This is all the more justified as hydraulics are the basis for any study of water quality and aquatic environment, and that IAHR still has within its Committes and members many specialists whose concern for ecosystems is well known and whose expertise needed to be gathered in a specific Committee .

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As the Committee has been set up very recently, its work are not yet completely finalised, but the main orientations will consist in close collaborations with other international associations working in the field of aquatic ecosystems, in setting up speciality working groups on specific themes, and in working on state-of-the-art papers, monographs, guidelines for “end users”. A first working group, focused on hydraulic modelling of aquatic ecosystems, has been launched in collaboration with IAMG (International Aquatic Modelling Group). Another one has also just began its works on Fish Passes, and a third one is under discussion on eutrophication in lakes and reservoirs. Their general aims are to bring specialists together in order to discuss, compare and evaluate methods in these fields, and to propose with recommendations for the end-users.

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Leadership Team

Chair

Dr. Harm Duel WL Delft Hydraulics P.O.Box 177, 2600 MH Delft The Netherlands Tel: +31 15 285 8585 Fax: +31 15 285 8582 E-mail: harm.duel@deltares.nl

Vice Chair

Dr. Thomas B. Hardy, Ph.D. Chief Science Officer River  Systems Institute Texas State University 601 University Drive San Marcos, Texas 78666 Phone:  (512) 245-6729 Fax: (512) 245-7371 E-mail: Thom.Hardy@TXState.edu

Members

Members [Excel file]

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• Proceedings of the 8th Int Symposium on Ecohydraulics, Sept 12-16 2010, COEX, Seoul,. Korea (CD + Book of abstracts) Available from Prof. Choi schoi@yonsei.ac.kr or contact the IAHR Secretariat
• Proceedings of the 7th Int Symposium on Ecohydraulics, Jan 12-16, 2009, Concepción, Chile (CD + Book of abstracts) Contact the IAHR Secretariat
• Proceedings of the 6th Int Symposium on Ecohydraulics, 18-23 February 2007, New Zealand (CD + hand book) Available from ftp://ftp.niwa.co.nz/incoming/jowett/EcoHydraulicsProceedings/ or contact the IAHR Secretariat
• Proceedings of the 5th Int. Symposium on Ecohydraulics, 12-17 September 2004, Madrid. Available from dgjalon@montes.upm.es or contact the IAHR Secretariat
• Proceedings of the 4th Int. Symposium on Ecohydraulics, Cape Town (2002). Environmental Flows for River Systems, an International Working Conference on Assessment and Implementation, Cape Town, South Africa; March 3-8, 2002. From Ros Townsend, Environmental Flows Conference Secretariat, Southern Waters Ecological Research and Consulting, P.O. Box 13280, Mowbray 7705, South Africa. Fax:+27 21 6503887 or E-mail: conference2002@southernwaters.co.za
• Proceedings of the 3rd Int. Symposium on Ecohydraulics, Salt Lake City, USA, July 13-16, 1999. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, 5005 Old Main Hill, Logan, Utah, USA. E-mail: ecohyd@aaron.cee.usu.edu
• Proceedings of the 2nd Int. Symposium on Habitat Hydraulics (Ecohydraulics 2000), Québec City, Canada, June 11-14, 1996, 2 volumes. Available from: From INRS-Eau, M. Leclerc, 2800 rue Einstein, P.O. Box 7500, Sainte-Foy (Qc), Canada G1V 4C7. michel.leclerc@ete.inrs.ca  125$ CDN, including shipping Orders to: jean-daniel.bourgault@ete.inrs.ca or by fax: +418 654 2660
• Proceedings of 2nd Int. Symposium on Ecology and Engineering (ISEE), Fremantle, Western Australia, November 10-12, 1997. From Ms. V. Sly, Centre for Water Research, The University of Western Australia, Nedlands WA 6907, Australia
• Proceedings of the 1st Int. Symposium on Habitat Hydraulics (Ecohydraulics 1994), The Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim, Norway, August 18-20, 1994. Available at the IAHR Secretariat.

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• Committee Meeting, Concepcion, January 2009
• Report on the Ecohydraulics Committee Meeting, July 2007
• Eco-hydraulics 2007. First Announcement
• Seoul Minutes 2005
• Minutes of the Ecohydraulics Committee Meeting, madrid September 2004

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