French Committee of Dams and Reservoirs (CFBR) annual Symposium, Aix les Bains, France, 25 January 2024

On January 25, 2024,was organized the annual Symposium of the French Committee of Dams and Reservoirs (CFBR).

This event was organized at the Congress Center in Aix Les Bains following the meeting of the CFBR General Assembly. The Guest of Honor for this year at this event was the Albanian Committee of Large Dams (ALBCOLD) where the Chairman of this Committee, Mr. Arjan Jovani gave a presentation on the history and current state of large dams and reservoirs in Albania, as well as on future challenges in this sector.

In the symposium, some main issues were addressed, such as

• The role of reservoirs in the fight against drought.
• Development of dams and the hydropower sector in Switzerland.
• Resistance of large dams to their accidental damage.
• Waterproofing and strengthening of dams.
• Geotechnical analyses related to the stability of slides in dams

The members of the General Assembly of CFBR, the President of ICOLD take part in the works of this Symposium. Prof. Michel Lino, ICOLD vice-presidents for Europe as well as the ICOLD Board of Directors and guests from counterpart Committees from Europe, America, and Africa

During the symposium, working meetings were organized with representatives of the Dam Safety Authority in France, representatives of EUROCOLD as well as with French experts for the monitoring and safety of dams.

A special meeting was organized with the president of CFBR, Prof. Denis Aelbrecht, where it was discussed the future cooperation of the two Committees as well as specifically about the details about the organization of the bilateral international symposium in Tirana, Albania. It was agreed that the symposium will be organized in cooperation between ALBCOLD and CFBR in Tirana on May 16–17, 2024.

The main topic of this event will be Innovations and New Challenges in the sector of large dams, where issues related to the governance and control of dam safety, technical standards for dam safety and monitoring, innovations, and developments in technologies will be addressed. Advanced in terms of design, safety, and monitoring of large dams. The President of ICOLD, Prof., will also participate in the symposium. Michel Lino.