2005 Water Resources Users Conference - Orlando

	Conference attendees in the field with a SonTek/YSI FlowTracker.
About 100 attendees participated in the three-day conference.		Mr. Yves Choquette (Hydro-Quebec, Canada) discusses measuring flow under ice.

January, 2005 - Our last conference in Las Vegas was a hit with our users, but this year’s (2005) Second SonTek/YSI International Water-Resources Users Conference in Orlando was hands-down even better!

The high quality of the user presentations and level of technical and practical experience amongst those present was readily apparent. Many of the attendees:

• Gained valuable connections with other users with similar types of project requirements and solutions
• Brought their unique projects from all over the world and showed the advancements they are making with Doppler technology
• Attended lectures by experts in the technology who took the time to present in-depth discussions on topics ranging from discharge measurement uncertainty to moving-bed issues with moving-boat measurements and the solutions to overcome common problems.

We would like to thank all those who attended, and especially the presenters who helped to make it such a huge success. With almost 100 attendees sporting a wealth of knowledge and experience from over 14 countries, we are certain the event was beneficial to all. In fact, in the next few months we’ll be announcing the dates and location of the next conference.

The conference program included two days of comprehensive and open presentations, and a third day of detailed and informative training from industry-leading experts. Discussions covered applications from all parts of the globe and topics ranged from laboratory testing to real-time online data monitoring, and from measurements under frozen rivers to those in the middle of the jungle.

The third day’s presentations were made by Dr. Arthur Schmidt from the University of Illinois and Dr. David Mueller from the USGS Office of Surface Water.

• Dr. Schmidt discussed the methods of calculation and uncertainty involved with Stage-Area/Stage-Discharge relationships and Velocity Index methods.
• Dr. Mueller covered alternative techniques when making discharge measurements in areas where a moving bed exists. These techniques included the application of both GPS and non-traditional approaches.

Each of these topics are critical in a successful application of acoustic Doppler technology and every user present at the lecture series came away with a much better understanding of their impact and how to implement them successfully for future applications.

Here’s just what a few of the conference attendees had to say...

• "Excellent. All [of the presentations] were interesting, which is not the norm for most technical conferences."
• "Great conference; lots of great information."
• "High quality presentations from knowledgeable individuals."

Interested in obtaining a free CD-ROM with selected conference materials and presentations? If so, just contact Lora Ellis (lora@sontek.com) and provide her with the standard information (name, company, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number).

We look forward to our next users conference! Stop by our web site from time-to-time to find out when and where the next conference will be held.