The Future of Water Infrastructure in Spain and the World

Date: Tuesday 8 April 2025 (9:00-18:00 h)
Location: Assembly Hall, Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Madrid Map and Online

Introduction  Programme  Contact  In Spanish  Register

 Introduction

The large number of infrastructures that exist in the field of water, their situation, the need for their maintenance and the need to build new ones to continue providing a sustainable service to their users -urban, agricultural and industrial-, together with the environmental protection of the water environment and the quality of the resource, as well as meeting potential new demands and for the defense against the catastrophic risks that water can cause, either due to its excessive abundance or its scarcity -floods and droughts-; They have determined that, in the context of the agreements of the IAHR (International Association of Hydro-environmental Engineering and Research) with Spain Water (General Directorate of Water, General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea and CEDEX) and with the CICCP (College of Roads, Canals and Ports), it has been considered of interest to hold a conference on the future of water infrastructures, thus giving continuity to those that have been held since the beginning of the aforementioned agreement.

Therefore, the purpose of this conference is to make known the forecasts that are currently held on the future of these infrastructures, dedicating this conference to continental waters, leaving the corresponding conference on marine waters for the first half of next year 2025. In both cases, all actions ranging from planning to demolition of obsolete works will be considered, including, in this way, the stages of design, construction, operation and maintenance and, finally, the removal of those infrastructures that no longer fulfill the service for which they were designed or the modification of those that may have new uses, and all this taking into account the important aspect of financing and that of concessions.

For the development of this conference, representatives of the entities that make up the Spain Water group and the Spanish private water sector will participate with their respective presentations and from the IAHR experts from its Regional Divisions - Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Africa - will provide, in person and online, a vision of what is being considered in these regions on this subject, presenting some illustrative cases of the current forecast on the future of these infrastructures.

Finally, the conference will include a colloquium between all participants to debate and ask questions to the speakers about what was presented in their presentations.

 Programme

Register (8:30 - 9:00)

Opening (9:00 - 9:30)
Áurea Perucho Martínez. Director of CEDEX.
Mª Dolores Pascual Vallés. General Director of Water. Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition.
Miguel Ángel Carrillo. President of the College of Civil Engineers.
Philippe Gourbesville. President of IAHR.

Presentations (9:30 - 11:00)

Hydraulic works in Spain: their purpose and future needs  (9:30 - 10:00)
Francisco José Hijós Bitrián. General Subdirectorate of Hydraulic Public Domain and Infrastructures. General Directorate for Water. Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition.

Digital Intelligence Empowering National Water Network: Innovative Practices for Water Security (10:00 - 10:30) 
Jing Peng. President of China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (Online).

Outlook for water works in Portugal (10:30 - 11:00) 
IAHR speaker (TBC).

Coffee Break (11:00 - 11:30)

The new role of dams in the framework of Integrated water resource management (11:30 - 12:00)
Enrique Cifres. International Consultant. Honorary Vice President of ICOLD (International Commission on Large Dams).

Some considerations on the present and future of physical and numerical modelling of large hydraulic infrastructures (12:00 - 12:30)
Luis Balairón. Director Hydraulics Laboratory. Centre for Hydrographic Studies. CEDEX.

Water infrastructure in a continent of extremes – insights from Australia (12:30 - 13:00)
Stefan Felder. Chair of the IAHR Technical Committee on Hydraulic Structures and Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney, Australia (Online).

Reservoirs: Key infrastructures in the energy transition (13:00 - 13:30)
Imanol García Sendón. Technical Advisor. Subdirectorate General of Public Hydraulic Domain and Infrastructure.

Lunch (13:30 - 15:00)

Presentations (15:00 - 16:30)

Challenges of the Water Sector in Spain (15:00 - 15:30)
Ángel Fernández López. President of the Water Group. Water, Energy and Climate Change Committee. Spanish College of Civil Engineers.

The future of hydroelectric infrastructures with a focus on France (15:30 - 16:00)
Jean Paul Chabard. President of the French Hydrotechnical Society and former Scientific Director of Electricité de France (Online).

Morocco's commitment to hydraulic works (16:00 - 16:30) 
Mohamed Abdellah Ezzaquini. Director Agence du Bassin Hydraulique Loukkos, Morocco. 

Colloquium (16:30 - 17:30)
Moderator: Concepción Marcuello. Coordinator International Affairs. General Directorate for Water. Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition.

Speakers
Francisco José Híjós Bitrián. General Subdirectorate of Hydraulic Public Domain and Infrastructures. General Directorate for Water. Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition.
Enrique Cifres. International Consultant. Honorary Vice President of ICOLD (International Commission on Large Dams).
Luis Balairón. Director Hydraulics Laboratory. Centre for Hydrographic Studies. CEDEX.
Imanol García Sendón. Technical Advisor. Subdirectorate General of Public Hydraulic Domain and Infrastructure.
Angel Fernández López. President of the Water Group. Water, Energy and Climate Change Committee. Spanish College of Civil Engineers.

Closing (17:30 - 18:00)
Francisco José Hijós Bitrián. General Directorate for Water. Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition. 
Federico Estrada. Director of the Centre for Hydrographic Studies. CEDEX.
Tom Soo. Executive Director of IAHR.

 Organisation

IAHR and Spain Water (General Directotate for Water, CEDEX and General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea).

 Contact

IAHR Global Secretariat.
Paseo Bajo Virgen del Puerto 3.
28005 Madrid. España.
Tel: +34 91 335 79 08
Email: iahr@iahr.org