An Introduction to the special issue on tackling challenging water resources problems in Canada: a systems approach

Abstract

The effectiveness of employing a systems thinking approach to addressing complex water resources problems in Canada is demonstrated by summarizing and comparing the valuable contributions of the authors of the papers appearing in this special issue of the Canadian Water Resources Journal. The authors originally presented their research at Water 2010, held in Quebec City from July 5^th to 7^th, 2010, as part of an ongoing sequence of conferences called the International Conferences on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER). By tackling challenging water resources problems in an integrative and adaptive fashion from a system of systems engineering perspective that considers stakeholders’ value systems, reasonable solutions can be found that are robust, sustainable and fair. Indeed, across the papers, the authors use a rich range of systems techniques for investigating the natural, technological, and societal systems aspects of complex water resources problems in Canada. A challenge is put forward to the Canadian water resources community to design a realistic water policy for Canada that is based upon sound systems principles and is, therefore, in consonance with other connected systems domains involving energy, climate change, societal well-being, the economy, and international commitments.

L’efficacité d’employer l’approche des systèmes de pensée pour addresser les problèmes de ressources d’eau complexe au Canada est démontrée en résumant et en comparant les précieuses contributions des auteurs des articles parus dans ce numéro spécial de la “Revue canadienne des ressources hydriques”. Les auteurs ont présenté leur travaux de recherche sur l’eau 2010 tenue à Québec du 5 au 7 Juillet 2010, dans le cadre d’une séquence continue de conférences appelé les conférences internationales sur les ressources en eau et environnement recherche (ICWRER). En s’attaquant aux problèmes de ressources d’eau difficiles de manière intégrative et adaptative d’un système de point de vue qui tient compte des systèmes de valeurs des parties prenantes de génie des systèmes, raisonnables peuvent trouver des solutions qui sont robuste, durable et équitable. En effet, à travers les articles, les auteurs utilisent une gamme riche de systèmes techniques pour enquêter sur les aspects des systèmes naturels, technologiques et sociétaux des problèmes de ressources complexes de l’eau au Canada. Un défi est présenté à la communauté de ressources de l’eau au Canada pour concevoir une politique réaliste de l’eau pour le Canada qui repose sur les principes des systèmes sonores et est, par conséquent, en conformité avec d’autres domaines de systèmes connectés impliquant l’énergie, changement climatique, bien-être social, l’économie et des engagements internationaux.

Introduction

Water is the “blood of life” that flows through the arteries of the hydrological system in a seemingly never-ending cycle as it sustains our societal and natural systems. The indispensable value of water is becoming much more highly appreciated by citizens around the globe as they witness how natural events within the hydrological cycle respond in extreme ways to the abuse directly wrought upon this invaluable system by irresponsible human behavior, including the dumping of massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmospheric system and the release of an ever-expanding array of deadly pollutants into the air, water and ground. Indeed, most people are now well aware that droughts are increasing in severity (Dai et al. 2004), flooding is much more devastating than before (Milly et al. 2002), and although more than 2 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water sources since 1990, there are still 780 million people without such access, especially in the poorer and rural regions of the world (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO), 2012).

Because of the foregoing and many other reasons, research in water and the environment is of great import to society. Dedicated scientists, engineers, economists, policy makers and others who have contributed to the theory and practice of activities linked to water and the environment publish their research in journals, conference proceedings and elsewhere. From July 5th to 7th, 2010, “Water 2010: Hydrology, Hydraulics and Water Resources in an Uncertain Environment – the 10^th International Symposium on Stochastic Hydraulics and 5^th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER 2010)” was held in Quebec City. Researchers who presented papers at this conference connected to addressing pressing water resources problems in Canada were encouraged to submit their papers for review and possible publication in the Canadian Water Resources Journal as part of a special issue on the topic of the title of this overview article. Seven papers accepted for publication appear in this special issue. Subsequent to highlighting the importance of taking a systems viewpoint when addressing tough water resources problems in the next section, the many contributions in this special issue are summarized, compared and put into perspective. Before the acknowledgements, pressing governance problems facing Canada with respect to water, energy and other related strategic areas are described along with specific recommendations for action. A history of the ICWRER sequence of conferences is provided in the Appendix and summarized in Table A1.

Systems of systems framework

The world, in which society and individual human beings survive and prosper, consists of complex highly interconnected systems of systems (SoS) (Sage and Cuppan 2001; Hipel and Fang, 2005; Sage and Biemer 2007; Hipel et al. 2008b, 2009; Jamshidi 2009). As depicted near the top of Figure 1, these SoS could be categorized according to natural, technological and societal SoS. From the lower portion of this figure, one can see that water is part of all of these SoS and is the “blood” which flows through these systems and connects them together. Accordingly, when systematically studying issues and problems linked to water, one must adopt a holistic or systems perspective that is integrative and thereby goes across systems, is adaptive and is therefore cognizant that unexpected emergent behavior may take place, and is participatory such that the value systems of stakeholders, including nature, must be entertained. This in turn means that systems methodologies and techniques are required for meaningfully tackling tough water systems problems involving nature, technology and society, as clearly indicated at the top of Figure 1. By adopting a systems approach to informed decision making, one can better ensure that desirable systems characteristics such as robustness, sustainability and fairness are achieved within and across systems.

Figure 1 Addressing tough water resources problems using systems methodologies.

As mentioned by Hipel et al. (2013), systems methodologies have been developed within fields such as systems engineering (Sage 1992), operational research, decision analysis, and systems science. In fact, after the Second World War, water resources engineers were members of one of the first major disciplines outside of the military to readily adopt a systems approach to decision making (Hipel and Fang 2005; Hipel et al. 2008a, 2008b, 2009). These pioneers in systems thinking long ago recognized that a reservoir was purposely designed and operated for supplying fresh water to serve multiple requirements of associated competing stakeholders in agriculture, industry, recreation, commerce, and residential water infrastructure. Moreover, low flow augmentation downstream from a reservoir, as well as the maintenance of healthy fish populations both upstream and downstream from a dam, clearly demonstrate that water resources engineers knew that nature is also a player to consider in the highly interdisciplinary field of water resources. More recently, water resources engineers have displayed international leadership by taking into account potential impacts of climate change on our valuable water resources and for designing appropriate mitigation procedures and projects. These engineers have recognized that the “climate change train” left the station many years ago and that dramatic action is urgently needed now before this train reaches the point of no-return and the climate system jumps to an irreversible and undesirable state which will wreak havoc on natural, technological, and societal SoS.

Within the field of water resources, a rich range of papers and books on water resources systems engineering have been published over the years (see, for instance, publications by Maas et al. 1962; Loucks et al. 1981; Hipel and McLeod 1994; Jain and Singh 2003; National Research Council 2004; Loucks and van Beek 2005; Simonovic 2009, 2011; Chang 2011). An informative handbook on integrative water resources management supplied by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and International Network of Basin Organizations (INBO) (GWP and INBO 2009) presents detailed explanations as to how integrative and adaptive (Holling 1978; Walters 1986) water resources management can actually be implemented in practice and employs case studies from around the world to illustrate how this is accomplished according to key issues such as financing, stakeholder investment, and basin information systems and monitoring. The International Joint Commission (IJC) (2009) recommends an integrated approach to river basin management for basins that are intersected by the Canada-US border. In its 2009 Managua Declaration, the Inter-American Network of Academies of Science (IANAS) declared that all countries in North and South America “should improve the way in which water is managed in order to perform it in a more integrated and sustainable way” (Cisneros and Tundisi 2012; Hipel et al. 2012). As has been done by water resources engineers for many years, formal systems modeling techniques that can be employed for studying physical, technological, and societal systems can be implemented as decision support systems to allow them to be conveniently utilized by both practitioners and researchers (Hipel et al. 2008a). Finally, a systems approach to creative problem solving in water resources is carried out within a highly uncertain environment involving conflicting stakeholders, natural hydrological fluctuations, unstable economies, land use changes, the effects of climate change, and unexpected systems behavior. In the next section, valuable contributions by Canadian researchers to address complex water resources systems problems in Canada are summarized.

Overview of contributions

As highlighted in Figure 1 and explained in the previous section, systems methodologies are needed for addressing challenging water resources problems confronting society in the presence of high uncertainty. In fact, because of expanding populations, the accelerating impacts of climate change, increasing industrialization around the globe, higher demand for energy, more severe droughts and worsening floods, ever-expanding spoiling of the water, air and soil, and many other connected reasons, the need for having a wider range of systems tools available for sensibly addressing complex water and other related SoS problems will only increase. This is certainly the case for Canada (Hipel et al. 2012).

Fortunately, for Canada, researchers and practitioners in water resources are well aware of the foregoing situation, and, at Water 2010, held in Quebec City (see Appendix and Table A1), an admirable range of leading-edge papers regarding the development of systems methodologies for tackling the physical and societal aspects of water resources problems in Canada were presented. Subsequent to the Québec conference, authors who completed research addressing challenging Canadian water problems were invited to submit their papers for review and possible publication in the Canadian Water Resources Journal.

The main contributions of each paper in this special issue are summarized in Table 1 according to two key categories: systems methodologies and their capabilities, as well as an overview of the Canadian case study and the general applicability of the systems techniques used in the paper. This summary of the main contributions of each of the papers allows the reader to appreciate how these advancements are connected to the upper and lower portions of the systems diagram displayed in Figure 1. Starting with the first paper in Table 1, Zhang et al. (2013) address a natural systems problem, in the top left in Figure 1, regarding the assignment of flow directions in flat areas which deals with flow and drainage given on the left in the bottom portion of Figure 1. In fact, all of the papers in this special issue are connected with one or more water topics written within the seven ellipses surrounding water in the bottom portion of Figure 1. In the next three papers, computational intelligence techniques are utilized to handle water resources issues (Asnaashari et al. 2013; Shen and McBean 2013; Kamali et al. 2013). With respect to a technological systems problem, Asnaashari et al. (2013) forecast watermain failures using neural network modeling for use in water distribution and infrastructure rehabilitation and planning. Shen and McBean (2013) employ parallel computing in data mining for identification of contaminant sources in water distribution systems. Then, Kamali et al. (2013) use several heuristic approaches to calibrate hydrological models which are employed to predict river flows in the Smoky River watershed in Alberta.

Table 1. Key contributions of authors for addressing challenging Canadian water problems using systems methodologies.

Authors	Main Contributions
	• Systems Methodologies • Capabilities	• Canadian Case Study • General Applicability
Zhang et al. (2013)	• Hydrological correction method using geostatistical interpolation for flat regions; model validation: geomorphologic assessment, assessment of flow direction, assessment of drainage pattern • Assigns flow directions to flat areas in a digital elevation model so as to obtain a connected stream network that resembles true network flow paths over the flat area	• Channel network generation for Canadian prairies (flat region) • Environmental impact assessment; water resources management; climate change studies; forest planning and wildlife habitat protection
Asnaashari et al. (2013)	• Artificial Neural Network Model to assign priorities for repair/replacement of water distribution pipes • Strong predictive capability compared to multiple linear regression method	• Prediction of failure rate for watermains in the City of Etobicoke, Ontario • Water distribution infrastructure rehabilitation and budgeting planning
Shen and McBean (2013)	• Contaminant Source Identification algorithms extended to parallel computation • Faster process, better accuracy and wider applicability of results	• Water distribution system simulation for the City of Goderich, Ontario, to detect contaminant source intrusion node • Water security; water quality
Kamali et al. (2013)	• Surrogate Model Optimization that combines Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) and the design and analysis of computer experiments (DACE) to calibrate hydrological models • Computationally inexpensive and accurate	• River flows prediction in the Smoky River watershed, Alberta, Canada, using the hydrologic model WATCLASS • Calibration of large-scale models; intelligent exploration of a large and messy model space; groundwater modeling, rainfall-runoff modeling
Hipel et al. (2013)	• Cooperative Water Allocation Model • Accounts for both the physical and societal systems aspects of the equitable allocation problem	• Fair water allocation among competing users in the South Saskatchewan River Basin located in Alberta, Canada • Equitable water allocation in complex water resources systems; integrated water resources management
Kim et al. (2013)	• ProGrid methodology • Incorporates intangible factors into multiple objective evaluation	• Prioritization of alternative solutions to water resources issues in the Alberta oil sands • Water security; water policy
Ma et al. (2013)	• Graph Model for Conflict Resolution • Handles multiple decision makers, each of whom can have multiple objectives	• Conflict analysis of a transboundary conflict between Canada and United States due to slag contamination in Lake Roosevelt • Resolution of conflict over water quality and quantity; incorporation of stakeholder values in water policy; international water resources disputes

The last three papers in Table 1 deal with decision making and policy formulation in water resources management. In particular, Hipel et al. (2013) overlaps with all three SoS given at the top of Figure 1 and uses a collection of systems methods to address the fair allocation of water in a river basin. The allocation research is indicated by an entry written as “Allocation” in an ellipse on the bottom right of Figure 1. Kim et al. (2013) employ a flexible multiple criteria decision analysis technique called the ProGrid methodology to prioritize alternative solutions to water resources issues in the Alberta oil sands. Finally, Ma et al. (2013) employ the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution to carry out a strategic investigation of a cross-border conflict between Canada and the United States brought about by slag contamination from Canada of Lake Roosevelt in the USA. Clearly, Canadian researchers are indeed contributing significantly to the development of a rich variety of systems approaches for tackling challenging water resources problems in Canada.

Future challenges: A call for a comprehensive Canadian water policy

The contents of this special issue and many other articles published in the Canadian Water Resources Journal and elsewhere over the years, demonstrate the crucial importance of adhering to a systems approach for realistically addressing a rich range of tough water problems that overlap with the natural, technological and societal SoS displayed at the top of Figure 1. By tackling tough water resources problems in an integrative and adaptive fashion from a system of systems engineering perspective that takes into account all stakeholders’ values, realistic solutions can be found that are fair, robust, and sustainable. A great challenge for Canadians is to design and implement appropriate water governance and associated policies that follow the foregoing systems approach.

Within Canada, many authors and organizations have put forward thoughtful suggestions for enhancing water governance. For example, Bruce and Mitchell (1995) and de Loë (2008, 2009), as well organizations such as the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, Canadian Water Network, Canadian Water Resources Association, Council of Canadians, Environment Canada, Gordon Water Group, International Joint Commission, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, Pembina Institute, Pollution Probe, Program on Water Issues at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Pugwash, and the RBC Bluewater Project, have proposed a rich range of water policy recommendations. Recently, under the auspices of the Royal Society of Canada, Hipel , Miall and Smith (2012) completed a white paper on water entitled “Water Resources in Canada: A Strategic Viewpoint” for the Focal Points of National Water Programmes of the Inter American Network of Academies of Science (IANAS). On World Water Day held on March 22, 2012, a book published in Spanish describing strategic water issues in many countries in the Americas, including Canada, was officially released by IANAS and its associated National Academies of Science across North and South America (Cisneros and Tundisi 2012).

In their report, Hipel et al. (2012) suggest a range of water-related governance policies, many of which overlap with ideas put forward by Canadian researchers and organizations over the years, as acknowledged in the report. Table 2 provides a listing of the recommendations within Canada for which a detailed explanation and connected references can be found in the Canadian report (Hipel et al. 2012). As can be seen, a systems approach (Recommendation 1) should form the solid foundations of governance in Canada, especially a national water policy (Recommendation 2). Moreover, because water resources are closely interconnected with energy and climate change, linked policies are needed in these two key areas (Recommendations 6 and 7, respectively). Since water resources, as well as other natural resources in Canada, are highly dependent upon international agreements that Canada signs, the recommendations listed in Table 3 are suggested by Hipel et al. (2012).

Table 2. Water governance recommendations within Canada.

Recommendation 1 – Systems philosophy	All levels of government in Canada should adopt an adaptive, integrative, and participatory approach to water governance within the framework of the paradigm of a system of systems as the foundation upon which they will improve and expand water governance which includes policy, laws, agreements, compliance, institutions, and management.
Recommendation 2 – National water policy	In consultation with all levels of government and key stakeholders, Canada should develop a comprehensive national water policy that reflects the values of Canadians and is in consonance with the legislative power of all levels of government and follows the philosophy of Recommendation 1.
Recommendation 3 – Governance structures	Develop policy and other associated governance structures for fairly and effectively sharing water among competing users within a water basin.
Recommendation 4 – Water use efficiency	Enhance and promote efficiencies in water use by the introduction of new industrial, agricultural, and domestic technologies. Realistic pricing of water supplies would help to enhance efficiencies.
Recommendation 5 – Monitoring and analysis	Expand and enhance analysis and monitoring programs within key water sources (major rivers and lakes) and continue and expand the application of modern hydrological, hydrogeogical and geological analysis of groundwater systems. Developing databases utilizing the concepts and methods of modern Geographic Information Systems would vastly increase the efficiency and utility of this work.
Recommendation 6 – Canadian greenhouse gas reductions	Canada should immediately put in place meaningful greenhouse gas reductions in cooperation with the provincial and territorial governments.
Recommendation 7 – Energy strategy for Canada	The Federal Government of Canada should develop a comprehensive national energy policy, based on sound systems principles, in collaboration with provincial, territorial and First Nations governments, as well as industrial, agricultural, environmental, and other appropriate stakeholders.

Table 3. Water governance recommendations at the international level.

Recommendation 8 – Responsible international economic agreement	Canada should negotiate an international economic agreement that prioritizes the maintenance of a healthy environment, societal well-being, and the rights of individuals within a sustainable development structure and adhering to the systems principles of Recommendation 1 of Table 2.
Recommendation 9 – Greenhouse gas emissions agreement	Canada should immediately negotiate a meaningful greenhouse gas agreement with all the nations of the world to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas releases. However, this should be done within the context of an integrative agreement on the control and management of air pollution in general based on a sound systems philosophy (see Recommendation 1 of Table 2).
Recommendation 10 – Global water treaty	Canada should lead the world in drawing up a comprehensive international treaty for freshwater following the systems ideas of Recommendation 1 of Table 2.

Kim et al. (2013) deal with water quantity and quality issues in Canada’s oil sands. This massive Canadian energy project illustrates the great need for a systems approach to investigate the natural, technological and societal aspects of this undertaking (refer to top of Figure 1). For instance, many different kinds of physical systems and economic models were and are being employed for addressing tough problems in the extraction, transportation and refining of bitumen. Procedures and policies are required for taking care of the environmental impacts of the many types of oil sands activities on the water, air and soil, as described in the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel Report on “Environmental and Health Impacts of Canada’s Oil Sands Industry” chaired by S.E. Hrudey (Gosselin et al. 2010). Policies are urgently needed for ensuring that proper monitoring and independent inspection and enforcement of environmental regulations are implemented. With respect to industrial and economic decision making, one must wonder if it is wise for the Province of Alberta and the Canadian Federal Government to allow bitumen from the oil sands to be shipped out of Canada to be processed elsewhere and thereby not have “value-added” to this vast energy resource which is in great demand around the world. At the present time, more than 30% of the bitumen is not being refined in Canada and this will rise to over 50% (Hipel and Bowman 2011). The proposed pipeline to ship unrefined bitumen via the Keystone and Northern Gateway pipelines to the USA and Asia, respectively, should be designed and constructed for transporting only fully refined petroleum products. Ensuring that all value-added activities take place in Canada would create meaningful widespread employment for Canadians and generate significant wealth that could be used for supporting Canada’s envied medical system and other beneficial programs, as well as reduce Canadian income taxes. According to Marceau and Bowman (2012), “New plants [refineries] should be built [in Canada] to upgrade the bitumen from the oil sands to fuels and chemical products, thus capturing more than $60 billion per year in value-added products and commensurate jobs inside Canada”. Likewise, when one considers a valuable resource like water, appropriate policy is certainly needed to make sure that all value-added is done within Canada. In fact, since the extraction and refinement of bitumen requires large amounts of water, refining the bitumen at refineries in Alberta; Sarnia (Ontario), Montreal (Quebec), and elsewhere in Canada means that both the water and bitumen have value-added when this is done.

In addition to the above, many other examples could be cited where Canadians are not taking full advantage of value-added to their water and other resources. For instance, agricultural products may be grown on Canadian farms but then processed and packaged for sale in another country. Accordingly, the authors of this special issue would like to challenge researchers and practitioners working in water resources in Canada to continue to tackle challenging water problems using a systems approach but also to investigate in more depth strategic water governance issues and their connections to other related activities within society. The future of Canada is in your hands.

Acknowledgements

The Guest Editors would like to express their appreciation to the organizers of Water 2010, held in Quebec City from July 5^th to 7^th, 2010, at which all of the papers in this special issue were originally presented. As listed in Table A1, this highly successful conference was ably chaired by Dr. T.B.M.J. Ouarda with the assistance of D. Fasbender and members of the ICWRER Steering Committee chaired by K.W. Hipel and co-chaired by G. Dandy (all authors of this overview paper are members of this committee). They are also grateful to the authors of the papers for expanding and revising their articles after the conference based on feedback obtained at their presentations, submitting their extended papers for review, and then appropriately revising their papers following helpful suggestions provided by the reviewers. They are furthermore indebted to the many anonymous referees who devoted their valuable time and expertise to carefully read the papers and furnish thoughtful comments for improving them. Finally, the Guest Editors also wish to thank the Co-Editors of the Canadian Water Resources Journal, Dr. Paul Whitfield and Dr. Diana Allen, as well as other Members of the Editorial Board for their sage guidance and advice during the preparation of this special issue.

Appendix: International Conferences on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER)

The sequence of International Conferences on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER) listed in Table A1 was initiated to honour the late Professor T.E. Unny, from the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, for his life-long accomplishments in hydrology, hydraulics, and other water-related areas. As can be seen in the table, the first conference, which was held at the University of Waterloo from June 21^st to 23^rd, 1993, to celebrate the life of Professor Unny, focused on stochastic and statistical techniques in hydrology and environmental engineering. Starting at the 1996 conference, which took place in Kyoto, Japan, in recognition of the career achievements of Professor T. Takasao from the Department of Civil Engineering at Kyoto University for his pioneering work in hydraulics and water management, the scope of the conference was enlarged and the name ICWRER was officially adopted to reflect this expansion. Hence, including ICWRER 2013, scheduled to take place in Koblenz, Germany, six out of the seven conferences officially used the title ICWRER as part of the conference name. These conferences have been located in four nations: Canada (1993, 2010), Japan (1996), Australia (1999, 2008) and Germany (2002, 2013). As shown in the left column of Table A1, some of these meetings were planned and executed in conjunction with other organizations, as was done in 1999, 2008 and 2010. When more than one organization hosted a given conference, all of the sessions were mixed together in a seamless fashion according to specific topics, which brought all attendees together under one academic roof. None of these conferences would have been possible without the hard and dedicated work of many individuals, some of whose names appear in the right column of Table A1. Indeed, the contributions from these and many other people connected to these immensely successful conferences are highly appreciated. The attendance at all of these conferences was high, and at ICWRER 2010 (also referred to as Water 2010), about 400 people from more than 40 countries registered in order to present their novel research ideas and to find out about exciting work in water and the environment taking place around the world. At Water 2010, a new initiative was started by presenting Lifetime Achievement Awards to three highly regarded international researchers at the conference banquet: T. Kojiri (from Kyoto University, Japan, who died in late 2011), K.W. Hipel (University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) and B. Bobée (L’Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Le Centre Eau Terre Environnement (ETE), Québec, Canada).

International conferences on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER).

Table

Titles	Locations	Dates	Organizers
Stochastic and Statistical Methods in Hydrology and Environmental Engineering (ICWRER 1993)	Waterloo, Ontario, Canada	June 21 to 23, 1993	K.W. Hipel (Chair), L. Fang, A.I. McLeod, U.S. Panu, V.P. Singh, E.A. McBean, and K. Ponnambalam
International Conference on Water Resources & Environment Research: Towards the 21st Century (ICWRER 1996)	Kyoto, Japan	October 29 to 31, 1996	T. Takasao (Chair), S. Ikebuchi, T. Kojiri, N. Okada, K. Takara, M. Shiiba, and E. Nakakita
Water 99 Joint Congress consisting of the 25^th Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium as well as the 2^nd International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER 1999)	Brisbane, Queensland, Australia	July 6 to 8, 1999	G. C. Dandy (Co-chair), J. MacIntosh (Co-chair), T. Daniell, M. Lambert, C. Simmons, D. Walker, and C. Wright
Third International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research: Water Quantity and Quality Aspects in Modelling and Management of Ecosystems (ICWRER 2002)	Dresden, Germany,	July 22 to 26, 2002	G.H. Schmitz (Chair), J. Benndorf, C. Bernhofer, B. Bilitewski, P. Krebs, F. Lennartz, P. Werner, and H.B. Horlacher
Water Down Under 2008: the 31^st Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and the 4^th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER 2008)	Adelaide, Australia,	April 15 to 17, 2008	G.C. Dandy (Chair), T. Daniell, M.Lambert, S. Beecham, C. Simmons, C.Wright, K. Schalk, S. Jennings, N. Hall, R. Hopkins, and M. Leonard
Water 2010: Hydrology, Hydraulics and Water Resources in an Uncertain Environment – the 10^th International Symposium on Stochastic Hydraulics and 5^th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER 2010)	Quebec City, Quebec, Canada,	July 5 to 7, 2010	Taha B.M.J. Ouarda (Chair), D. Fashbender, and members of the ICWRER Steering Committee
6th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research: Water and Environmental Dynamics (ICWRER 2013)	Koblenz, Germany	June 3 to 7, 2013	J. Cullmann (Chair), H. Moser,
			P. Heininger,
			A. Conde, and
			U. Schroeder

At each of the meetings, conference proceedings and an agenda were supplied. Moreover, additional publications were also published in some cases. For instance, after the 1993 Waterloo conference, four edited books containing fully refereed papers from the conference were published on the following topics: Extreme Values: Floods and Droughts (Hipel 1994a), Stochastic and Statistical Modelling with Groundwater and Surface Water Applications (Hipel 1994b), Time Series Analysis in Hydrology and Environmental Engineering (Hipel et al. 1994), and Effective Environmental Management for Sustainable Development (Hipel and Fang 1994). Additionally, a special issue of the journal “Stochastic Hydrology and Hydraulics”, which is now called “Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment”, was published in 1995 based on papers presented at the 1993 Waterloo conference. Finally, a student scholarship named in honour of Professor Unny was launched at the University of Waterloo in 1993.

As mentioned above, people from many nations participated in Water 2010, held in Quebec City. This conference provided a critical forum for the dissemination of state-of-the-art results and methodologies in the general field of water resources. The meeting constituted a seamless joining of the 10^th International Symposium on Stochastic Hydraulics (ISSH) and 5^th ICWRER. Since 1972, ISSH has been organized on a four-year basis and is now considered as a regular and respected event among technical conferences for engineers and scientists working in the rapidly growing field of probabilistic methods in water engineering. As was the case for the nine previous symposia, the 10^th ISSH provided an opportunity for researchers, practitioners, educators and public officials interested in stochastic hydraulics to share ideas, experiences and needs with regards to hydraulics and engineering problems, at both formal and informal settings. The topics of the symposium included stochastic analysis, river hydraulics, sediment transport, catchment hydraulics, groundwater, waves and coastal processes, hydraulic networks, hydrology, and risk and reliability in hydraulic design. Water 2010 was the third time that ICWRER was jointly organized with another organization. One of the objectives of ICWRER is to bring together physical and societal systems expertise from around the globe in order to better understand natural systems related to water resources and the environment. The topics of ICWRER are broad and cover areas such as geographical information systems and remote sensing, stochastic hydrology, sustainable water management, surface water and groundwater interaction, ecosystem modelling, conflict resolution, scaling problems in hydrology and water resources, environmental management, risk analysis and climate change.

The main theme of Water 2010, the joint ISSH-2010 and ICWRER-2010 Symposium, is “Hydrology, Hydraulics and Water Resources in an Uncertain Environment”. In the current changing environment, water resources modeling and management are becoming increasingly important and challenging. How to deal with the changing frequency and magnitude of droughts and floods or how to ensure access to potable water are only some examples of difficulties that several countries are now facing. In this context, the first decade of the century is a starting point for the decades to come in which hydrologists and water resources engineers will play an increasingly important role in society.