The IAHR International Symposium on Ice is a biannual conference covering engineering and research on ice in fresh and salt water. The conference was first arranged in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1970. Originally, the 25th IAHR International Symposium on Ice was to take place in Trondheim, Norway, in June 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the event was organised instead as a virtual conference in November 2020. The 2020 conference brought together 105 participants and 87 papers were submitted and peer reviewed for the technical sessions. In addition, two plenary key note lectures were given covering the challenges of hydropower operation in the arctic and the history of ice research in Norway.

The technical sessions covered a range of topics within research on ice processes, utilisation of remote sensed data and engineering aspects related to ice jams, loads on structures and hydropower operation in fresh water and ships, and floaters and fixed structures in coastal areas and on the ocean. All presentations and discussions were carried out live on a digital platform, and this fostered many interesting exchanges of information across countries and time zones.

Proceedings of the 25th IAHR International Symposium on Ice

Acknowledgments

The 25th IAHR International Symposium on Ice was arranged thanks to financial support from the Norwegian Research Council and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. We gratefully acknowledge the support they provided to set up the conference. The organising committee also wishes to thank the NTNU Centre for Continuing Education and Professional Development for their support with the administration and technical orchestration of the event. The transition from a traditional conference to a virtual meeting could not have been done without this support. Finally, the organising committee would like to thank the scientific committee for handling the peer review of the papers, the reviewers of the papers, and last but not least, all the authors and conference participants who made this event possible. 

Knut Alfredsen, Chairman of the organising committee.