The Inaugural International Symposium on Water Modelling (iSymWater) took place on July 8, 2019 for three days in Beijing Xijiao Hotel.

The chair of the symposium, professor Jian Guo Zhou delivered the opening speech. "We are now facing ever greater challenges to deal with water problems. The goal of the symposium is to bring experts together to discuss and exchange findings for potential solutions and to plan strategies for sustainable water in future," Zhou said.

Zhou further pointed out that modelling water changes the world, and this starts with all of us and those who are working in water relevant areas everywhere. 

As the host, professor Cui Baoshan, the dean of the School of Environment at the Beijing Normal University, said he is delighted to welcome all the participants to join the Inaugural International Symposium on Water Modelling, and wished the conference a great success.

The symposium is hosted by Beijing Normal University and Manchester Metropolitan University, with the support of the National Key Research and Development Program and Key Laboratory for Water and Sediment Science.

Topics of discussion included hydraulic modelling, hydro-environment modelling, hydro-ecology modelling, water management modelling, experiment and software, and marine ranching study.

The symposium has attracted about 140 top experts in water and environmental science from around the world, including those from China, UK, US, Australia, Italy and Japan.

Professors Alistair Borthwick (UK), David Hamilton (Australia), Jun Sasaki (Japan), Zheng Bing Wang (Netherlands), Paul Craig (US), Carlo Gualtieri (Italy), Shen Zhenyao and Sun Tao (China) have been invited as keynote speakers and delivered key speeches. Restoration and improvement of water environmental protection and restoration of water ecosystems, both prominent and pressing issues today, sparked heated discussion from the experts and participants. The state-of-the-art technical solutions to the problems and large-scale applications are also shared and discussed among the scholars in the symposium.