On behalf of the Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD) Executive and the Organising Committee I am delighted to invite everyone with an interest in dams to the 2011 ANCOLD Conference to be held in Melbourne, Victoria.

The workshop and technical conference will be held at the Crown Casino Complex located on the Yarra River adjacent to Melbourne’s CBD. From here there are many accommodation options and walking access to the City of Melbourne. The city is widely known for its cosmopolitan nature and a fanatical love of food, the arts, music, shopping and sport. It is a special time to be in Melbourne as this year’s conference coincides with the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. The Spring Racing Carnival is a world class event showcasing thoroughbred racing, fashion and entertainment at its finest, culminating in the running of the race that stops the nation, The Melbourne Cup, in the week after the conference.

The conference theme for 2011 is “The Future of Dams”. Over the last decade the role of dams as the traditional source of water supply has gradually shifted and now dams are only one of a number of options for providing water supply and storage.

The technical conference will be held between 27 and 28 of October 2011 and will bring together the state of knowledge in the industry to explore a number of issues such as:

• the future role of dams in our community;
• the use of the ALARP principle in dam asset management and consideration of where investment is directed for the maximum benefit of the community;
• advances in flood estimation and an over the horizon look at what the industry may have to manage under various climate change scenarios; and
• also a continuation of our focus on Tailings Dams and their management.

The workshop this year will focus on Emergency Planning and will be held on Wednesday 26 of October. In recent years we have all been shocked by the number of natural disasters in our region that have triggered emergency responses not only by dam owners but also across the wider community. Events such as the Victorian bushfires, Christchurch Earthquake, Queensland, Eastern Seaboard flooding including the devastating Brisbane flood and most recently the tragic Japanese earthquake and tsunami. We will endeavor to bring firsthand experience from some of these local and international events and disasters to this workshop in an interactive format to disseminate the lessons from these disasters to the professionals who must prepare for such events.

The post conference tour will be on the 29 and 30 of October 2011 and will circumnavigate Port Philip Bay including taking in the most scenic section of the Great Ocean Road. The tour will visit interesting dams toward the historic town of Ballarat before turning south towards the rainforests of the Otway Ranges and an overnight stay in the picturesque coastal township of Lorne. Day two will see the tour travel the Great Ocean Road, Bellarine Peninsula and a ferry crossing of the Port Philip Heads and then visit one of Melbourne’s largest dams, Cardinia Dam. This tour promises to be a memorable one with an impressive range of dams and arguably Australia’s most picturesque scenic coastal drive.

I look forward to welcoming you and your colleagues to Melbourne in October 2011.

Stephen Newman
2011 ANCOLD Conference Convener



2011 ANCOLD CONFERENCE ORGANISING COMMITTEE