85ª Reunión Anual de ICOLD
Praga 2017
- Jul 07, 2017
INVITATION
Dear colleagues, members of ICOLD and friends of dam engineering and associated disciplines.
For the first time in its history the ICOLD Annual Meeting will be held in Prague. On behalf of the Czech National Committee on Large Dams, one of the founding members of ICOLD in the early thirties, let me introduce what will be on the agenda of ICOLD 2017 Annual Meeting, which is to be held in the charming capital of the Czech Republic.
During your visit to the Czech Republic on the occasion of the ICOLD 2017 Annual Meeting you will have an opportunity to attend the technical part of the Annual Meeting as well as to learn more about the history and present time of dams and experience the cultural and social life of our country.
The key event of the technical agenda of the Annual Meeting will be a one day symposium called “Knowledge Based Dam Engineering“. Other important items on the agenda will be the discussions of the Technical Committees, Working Groups, regional clubs and other groups of ICOLD. The venue – Clarion Congress Hotel Prague – and its surroundings will offer a pleasant working environment for all the events held as part of the technical programme of the Annual Meeting.
The traditional technical tours, from which the participants can choose, will be directed to three regions of the Czech Republic. The participants will visit dams and other places of interest in each of these three regions. The tours will include past and present examples of dam engineering and construction in the Czech Republic. At present World Register of Dams includes 118 structures located in the Czech Republic. The history of dam construction on the territory of what is now the Czech Republic dates back to the thirteenth century. Eight big reservoirs, which are on the ICOLD list, have survived since Middle Ages (structures built from 1272 to 1590) and are still in operation. Some systems of lakes, particularly in South Bohemia, built in medieval times are now protected natural reserves together with the landscape that surrounds them.
Late in the nineteenth and mainly in the twentieth century modern dams were built with multipurpose reservoirs. In the first period from 1850 to 1940 thirty two dams were built. After WWII seventy eight dams were built from 1943 to 1997, which are in the ICOLD World Register of Dams.
As part of the ICOLD Annual Meeting Prague 2017 we are preparing post study tours for those interested in learning more about other regions of the Czech Republic where there are many cultural and technical sites of interest. The post study tours will lead to fi ve regions of the Czech Republic.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are looking forward to meeting you at the technical and social events in the contemporary and historic parts of Prague during the warm summer month – in the region with a long tradition of water management which is often referred to as the “Roof of Europe”. We will share our experience with you and we will be interested in and inspired by your achievements in the design, engineering, construction and operation of dams.
We are looking forward to a friendly atmosphere of traditional annual meeting of the ICOLD family. We most cordially invite you to participate in this event.
Chairman, Czech National Committee on Large Dams