FRIAR 2022

8th International Conference on Flood and Urban Water Management

Post Conference Report

6–8 July 2022
Online

Overview

FRIAR 2022

With the main objective to preserve our delegates’ wellbeing, but also with the belief that the international contacts among the scientific community should not be stopped, WIT decided that this conference should not take place as scheduled in Madrid, Spain, but take place as an online event instead.

The conference was organised by the Wessex Institute, UK and the Polytechnic of Milan, Italy both represented by Prof Stefano Mambretti and the University of Wolverhampton, represented by Prof David Proverbs. FRIAR 2022 is the eighth conference of this successful series which started at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London in 2008. Since 2012 a parallel seminar on the Design, Construction, Maintenance, Monitoring and Control of Urban Water has taken place which is now an integral part of the conference.

Flooding is a global phenomenon that claims numerous lives worldwide each year. When flooding occurs in urban areas, it can cause substantial damage to property as well as threatening human life. In addition, many more people must endure the homelessness, upset and disruption that are left in the wake of floods. The increased frequency of flooding in the last few years, coupled with climate change predictions and urban development, suggest that these impacts are set to worsen in the future. How we respond and importantly, adapt to these challenges is key to developing our long term resilience at the property, community and city scale.


Opening of the Conference

The conference was opened by Prof David Proverbs from the University, UK who welcomed the delegates to the event on behalf of all Chairs.

Invited Speakers

There was an invited lecture, as follows:

  • What happened in 2021? Analyzing the biggest Negro river flood in Manaus
    by J.S. Cury Maciel, L. G. Simoes Alves, B. F. Oliveira, R. Cruz Senna & V. Dos Santos Albuquerque

Conference Sessions

The papers presented during the conference were classified under the following headings:

  • Flood modelling
  • Flood mitigation
  • Modelling and experimentation

Prigogine Award Ceremonies

During a live Zoom session on the 8th July 2022 the presentation of the 2022 Prigogine Award medal took place.  The 2022 Prigogine Award medal was awarded to Prof Robert Gilmore, Drexel University, USA, who gave his Special Prigogine Lecture “ThermoDynamics and EcoDynamics”.

More information on the Prigogine Award Ceremonies can be found at: https://www.wessex.ac.uk/prigogine-award

Q&A Live Zoom Sessions

Conference delegates were invited to participate in a Q&A live Zoom session which took place on 8th July 2022. This friendly session was a great opportunity for participants to interact with each other and put questions to authors about their papers.

Conference Publication

Papers presented at this conference are published in Volume 208 of the WIT Transactions on the Built Environment (Electronic ISSN: 1743-3509)). Papers presented at the meeting are available Open Access in the eLibrary of the Wessex Institute (https://www.witpress.com/elibrary) from where they can be freely downloaded by any interested parties.

Closing of the Conference

We are very sorry that we were not able to meet our delegates in person this time, but hope that we will be able to do so at a future event.