Thank you for participating in the 11th IMWA Congress 2011 in Aachen!
We are very pleased about having successfully hosted the 11th congress of the International Mine Water Association in Aachen with over 200 participants from 27 nations. With 105 oral presentations (19 by students) and 26 poster contributions (5 by students), the congress successfully contributed to the scientific exchange of international experts in mine water topics. We welcome 31 new members who joined IMWA during the event.
| Many thanks to all of you, as you did the partly quite long journey to Aachen to join us and to make this congress possible. We hope that you all enjoyed your stay in Germany and that you had a safe journey home. |
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Especially, we like to give thanks to the opening ceremony keynote speakers Brian Ricketts (Euracoal), Dr.-Ing. Lars Kulik (RWE Power AG) and Univ.-Prof. Horst-Robert Langguth (RWTH Aachen University), the mid congress keynote speakers Dr. Rens Verburg (Golder Associates Inc.) and Prof. Dr. Stefan Wohnlich (Ruhr-Universität Bochum). Last but not least we acknowledge the keynote of the closing ceremony given by the founding president of IMWA, Prof. Rafael Fernandez Rubio. You will find his speech in writing here.
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The awards for the best student oral presentations went to Neehal Mooruth from the University of Cape Town (ZA) with his talk about "Passive Treatment of Acid Mine Drainage via a Linear Flow Channel Reactor utilising a Floating Sulphur Biofilm" and Elisee Nsimba Bakatula from the University of the Witwatersrand (ZA) with her talk about "Biosorption of metals from gold mine wastewaters by Penicillium simplicissimum immobilized on zeolite: Kinetic, equilibrium and thermodynamic studies". Eleni Vasileiou and Ioannis Koumantakis from the National Technical University of Athens (GR) were awarded with the prize for the best student poster contribution "The exploitation of lignite deposits in relation with the surface and groundwater in the mining area. The case study of Potamia basin in Thessaly, Greece".
Also, the best paper published in "Mine Water and the Environment" in 2010 was celebrated during the congress dinner, the award was given to Susanna Kihlman and Tommi Kauppila from Suomi for their paper "Tracking the aquatic impacts of a historical metal mine using lacustrine protists and diatom algae".
Special thanks also go to the sponsors of the congress which participated in the congress with exhibition booths: Cogent Environmental Ltd. (UK), DHI-WASY GmbH (D), DMT GmbH & Co. KG (D), Neutralac as part of the Lhoist S.A. Group (B), Pall Corporation (USA), and Xrosswater LLC (USA). Further sponsors were Adrian Brown Consultants Inc. (USA), the Kur- und Badegesellschaft mbH (D), and RWE Power AG (D).
The mid congress excursions to the open pits of the Rhenish lignite district were conducted with the kind support of RWE Power AG.
Looking forward to seeing you next year at the IMWA Symposium in Bunbury/Perth, Western Australia, September 30th - October 4th 2012, see www.imwa2012.info.
Glückauf!
Prof. Dr. Thomas R. Rüde & the organizing commitee
(for further information see www.imwa.info)