The 37th World Congress of International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) was successfully opened at the Putra World Trade Centre, Malaysia on August 14, 2017. At the opening ceremony, in recognition of prof. Zhaoyin Wang’s outstanding contribution in the field of sediment transport and river dynamics, and for his devoted service to IAHR in various capacities including most recently service as Vice President during the period 2011-2015, the IAHR community conferred Prof. Wang with the 2017 IAHR HONORARY MEMBER AWARD. This award is the most prestigious honor conferred by the IAHR Council, and only given to three distinguished IAHR members. Together with Prof. Wang, Prof. Roger Falconer from the UK and Prof. Jörg Imberger from Australia were also conferred with the 2017 IAHR HONORAY MEMBER AWARDS. Owing to the health condition, Prof. Wang was not able to attend this congress and receive the award personally, his student, Prof. Mengzhen XU from Tsinghua University, Beijing, accepted the award from the present IAHR president Prof. Peter Goodwin on behalf of him.