Civil Engineering June 2021 | Vol 29 No 5

Civil Engineering June 2021 41 SANCOLD EVENTS No SANCOLD Conference was held in 2020 due to the impact of Covid-19 and the resultant lockdown. The disruption continued as the originally planned date for 2021 had to be amended due to the local government elections being held on 27 October. This year we are planning a bumper event at the Maslow Conference Centre in Menlyn, Pretoria from 3 to 5 November 2021. This year will follow the usual format of a two-day conference followed by a site visit to a dam on the last day. Included will be the SANCOLD AGM, a gala dinner and the Young Person’s Forum social event. The theme for the 2021 con- ference is Resilient dams in a challenging environment . There has been a healthy renewal in interest in the conference, with abstracts for over 50 technical papers al- ready submitted, and study tours showing great promise.  Peter Pyke Pr Eng Secretary SANCOLD secretary@sancold.org.za SANCOLD News The 2018 SANCOLD Conference in session Site visit to a small dam under construction at the 2018 conference ICOLD UPDATE The worldwide lockdown following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has also wreaked havoc with arrangements for ICOLD Conferences. The 88 th Annual Meeting of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), which was originally scheduled to be held in New Delhi, India from 4 to 10 April 2020, was postponed to 26 September to 1 October 2020, and then later transitioned to a virtual conference held from 28 November to 3 December 2020. Every three years ICOLD holds a congress, which is an expanded event. The 27 th ICOLD Congress and 89 th Annual Meeting was scheduled to be held in Marseilles, France from 4 to 11 June 2021, but has been rescheduled a second time due to the Covid-19 crisis and will now take place from 27 May to 3 June 2022. In addition to the usual four selected questions and themes for congress papers, there will be a symposium titled Sharing Water: Multi purposes of reservoirs and innovations . With much of Europe still under lockdown and with many restrictions still imposed on international travel, it is possible that there may be further postponements. SANCOLD is represented on 20 of the ICOLD Technical Committees which produce bulletins of good practice on technical issues. These bulletins cover all aspects relating to dams and are made available to the industry, and together with other relevant documents are available to SANCOLD members at no cost.  FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDIES To promote and support research into aspects around dams, SANCOLD continues to support postgraduate students. SANCOLD is proud to an- nounce that the 2021 scholarship will be shared by two deserving applicants who will each receive R50 000 to sup- plement their studies in 2021. There were eight applicants from three universities vying for the schol- arship and the wide scope and level of research proposals was high, making adjudication a challenge. The awards went to Jack Basson from the University of Pretoria with his MSc research proposal on Investigating the Trend of Matric Suctions and Water Contents in a Tailing Dam and previous awardee Udhav Maharaj (who has since received his MSc from the University of KwaZulu-Natal) for his PhD research pro- posal Updating the SCS-SA Model and Assessing the Uncertainty of Flood Estimates in South Africa guided by Prof. JC Smithers at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.  Jack Basson Udhav Maharaj