The Sixth International Conference on Estuaries and Coasts held in Caen, France

The Sixth International Conference on Estuaries and Coasts (ICEC-2018), organized by the University of Caen Normandy and the Group of Scientific Interests on Hydraulics for the Environment and for the Sustainable Development (GIS HEDD), was successfully held in Caen, France on August 20-23, 2018. About 150 participants from more than 20 countries and regions around the world participated in the ICEC-2018. The ICEC-2018 is sponsored by International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation (IRTCES) and co-sponsored by the French Society of HydroTechnics (SHF), International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR), World Association for Sedimentation and Erosion Research (WASER), Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society Estuary Regulation and Protection Commission (CHES-ERPC), and Caen la mer.

The ICEC-2018 was opened on the morning of August 20, chaired by Prof. Dan Nguyen, the Chairman of the LOC, speeches were delivered by following representatives:

Mr. Pierre Denise, President of the University of Caen Normandie;
Prof. Liu Guangquan, Deputy Director of the IRTCES;
Prof. Lu Zhongmin, Director of the CHES-ERPC;
Prof. Liu Cheng, Executive Secretary General of the WASER; and
Mr. Jean-Michel Tanguy, President of the GIS HEDD.

The ICEC 2018, including 8 keynote, 85 oral and 16 Poster presentations lasted for 4 days, including one day technical visit of the Couesnon’s dam. Papers with the main theme “Estuaries and Coasts in times of Global Change” were presented and discussed. Keynote presentations include:

Port and coastal structures to climate change resilience: the French experience and that of PIANC (by Prof. Geoffroy Caude);
The Mississippi River Delta Plain as a basis for understanding low gradient coastal land margin systems and how we may engineer our response to climate change (by Prof. Scott Hagen);
Towards understanding the dynamics of intertidal ecosystems in times of global change: towards linking fundamental and application (by Prof. Tjeerd Bouma);
Challenges and opportunities of tidal energy conversion: tidal asymmetry and tidal phasing (by Prof. Neil Simon);
Efficient modelling of complex coastal evolution at monthly to century time scales (by Prof. Roelvink Dano);
Extreme waves: Their measurement, generation, modelling and impact (by Prof. Frédéric Dias);
Coastal development under the threat of floods and climate change: risk assessment and sustainable decision making (by Prof. Barbara Zanuttigh); and
Interactions of Waves, Current and Vegetation (by Prof. Weiming Wu).

The ICEC is a triennial technical event initiated by IRTCES and its Permanent Secretariat is hosted by the IRTCES. The 7th ICEC was announced to be hosted by East China Normal University and held in Shanghai, China in 2021.