Korean Water Resources Association Conference Gyeongju, Korea - May 2008

摘要

I represented the New Zealand Hydrological Society (NZHS) in May 2008 at theKorean Water Resources Association (KWRA) Conference in my capacity asSecretary of the NZHS and also holding the International Liaison Portfolio. Threeother delegates from NZHS who also attended the conference were Graeme Smart(Niwa), Gordon Euinton (Riley Consultants) and Timothy Hong (GNS). Theconference was held on 22/23 May 2008 in Gyeongju, which is about a 4-hour trainride and located southeast of Seoul, the capital. Seoul itself has 9 million people,with South Korea having a population of 48 million. We all met in Seoul prior tothe conference and caught the high-speed train from Seoul to Daegu and thentransferred in a normal train to Gyeongju. The high speed train hit 298 km/hour!and the normal one about 120 km/hour. The transportation system in Korea ishighly efficient and the whole country is wired up for high-speed broadband. Theconference had over 800 delegates, with three concurrent sessions. One of the firstday sessions was the international session, which was the only English session. Ichaired the session with Prof. Jeong. International papers included those from NewZealand (all NZ delegates presented a paper each), Japan, China and thePhilippines. They had good trade displays with lots of technical equipment.Gyeongju is also a historic city, as the first Korean kingdom was established here.KWRA organised a half-day bus tour for the overseas delegates of historic sites ofthis city which was most enjoyable.