SimHydro conferences, since 2010, have created a regular forum where major actors of the hydroinformatic domain and stakeholders meet, share and debate about needs, innovations and implementations of models and their inputs for decision making. The various sessions of SimHydro 2027 will cover these dimensions and will offer to the participants the possibility to share and exchange with scientists, practitioners and decision makers.
The SimHydro 2027 conference is jointly organized by the Société Hydrotechnique de France (SHF), the Association Française de Mécanique (AFM), the Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) with the support of Polytech Nice Sophia and Université Côte d’Azur .
Following the 8 past successful events in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2025, the next SimHydro Conference will be held from June 2 to June 4 2027 in Nice, France. The conference will run on-site only. For this new edition, the general theme of the conference will be focused on “Which models for water issues?”. The objective is to address the challenges faced by the water modelling community and to identify the efficient modelling strategies to tackle water issues. The modelling concepts used in the water sector are challenged by the availability of computational power and the surge of AI agents. Both aspects bring opportunities for disruptive approaches and emergence of new operational concepts that could fit the expectations of the water professional sector. Questioning the added value of models must be a priority for operators and modellers. The exponential production of field and monitoring data with new generation sensors (including remote sensing) is becoming a real burden for scientists, engineerings and field operators who have to define a sustainable strategy for data management for a decade horizon, optimize investments, manage maintenance and at the same time, ensure quality and reliability. Emerging concepts like Digital Twins bring answers that must be discussed among the various actors of the water sector and the solution providers as well.
In addition to the recurrent topics of the conference, SimHydro 2027 will focused sessions around the following major themes:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) for water issues: With the availability of computational resources and real-time communication protocols, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods and tools are flowing within all scientific and technical sectors including the water domain. The massive deployment of those tools is obviously attracting interest of the water community as they offer the possibility to address complex problems and can potentially support real-time operations that represent a major step for many professionals engaged within operations. However, if the perspectives look promissing, the practical development and implementation requests to go through a critical and validation process that is not yet fully formalized. Based on the latest AI developments and the most recent implementations in the water domain, the plenary session will address the added value of the AI approaches and the associated challenges that should be understood by the water community.
- Digital twins: The concept digital twin is gaining interest in the water community and especially for water services as demonstrated during the two last SimHydro editions. The digital representation of assets, devices and water systems is following the SCADA deployment that has been already used for decades. The digital twins represent an integration phase that still at the early stage. The ambition to improve efficiency and performance in water service sector requests to integrate an increased complexity that is not formalized within the current scope of digital twins. Within this perspective, the deployment of the digital twin concept to catchments represents even a greater challenge. The session will address the latest developments for digital twins in the various water sectors.
- Models for extreme hydrologic events: Over the last four years, many regions of the world have faced one of the most exceptional drought events of the past 50 years. At the same time, severe convective storms and the associated flash floods are, since 2024, the most costly disasters for insurance companies. Under those exceptional circumstances, once again the need for modelling tools able to address and to anticipate this type of situation has been underlined for the development of sustainable water sharing strategies. Obviously the innovative approaches regarding waste water treatment for water reuse and recycle have gained interest and appear on the list of operational solutions. A holistic approach is called and requests efficient modelling tools. In this context, the current modelling approach needs to be updated and to integrate a wider spectrum of processes to be able to formulate proper management strategies encompassing water uses, natural environment preservation and water related hazards mitigation.
- Special Session Hydroinfromatics by & for young professionals. The parallel evolution of (i) hydroinformatics tools and methods, (ii) of ICT technologies, and (iii) of the training practices has significantly transformed how young professionals approach opportunities to develop and execute their training and studies. This session invites students, professionals, engineers, and researchers to share the outcomes of their recent projects and innovative practices in the field. Participants are encouraged to present their work using the format that best suits their communication goals, choosing from the following options: (A) a regular presentation (12 min presentation, full paper submission), (B) a short presentation (8 min presentation, 4 pages extended abstract submission), or (C) a poster (2 min teaser presentation). To further enhance the exchanges in this session, presenters in categories (A) and (B) are free to allocate their presentation and Q&A time flexibly within their designated time slots. Abstract submissions for this special session are open until 15th April. Authors must specify their preferred presentation format (A, B, or C) when submitting their abstracts. Convenors: Morgan Abily (Université Côte d’Azur, Géoazur, France), Olivier Delestre (Université Côte d’Azur, LJAD, France)
The SimHydro conference is mainly targeting the European audience and endeavours to collect high value papers that will be published in SCI scientific journals and in a specific book (Advances in Hydroinformatics) with Springer like for the 7 previous editions. Over the last 10 years, the published chapters have been downloaded more than 360 000 times. All submitted papers are going through a peer review process (2 reviews from the scientific committee) before receiving final approval for oral presentation and publication.
English will be the conference language.
Main Themes
- Models for droughts, floods and water sharing strategies
- AI for water issues
- Digital twins
- Hydro-environmental issues and extreme situations
- Uncertainties and data assimilation
- AI solutions for water
- Intensive computing for hydraulic simulations
- Extreme in hydraulics: how to deal with?
- Decision Support System and models: concepts, design, challenges, implementation and operation
- Real time management and models
- Hydraulic structures and networks: real time operation
- Scale models in hydraulics and their place and complementary in simulation concepts
- Modelling methods and tools for floods management
- 3D multi-phase flows (experiments and modelling)
- Hydraulic machinery
- Diphasic flows and cavitation
- Modelling in ecohydraulics and morphology
Keywords
Models, data, simulation, droughts, floods, water sharing strategies, water services, wastewater treatment, water reuse and recycle, AI, digital twins, uncertainties, real time, high performance computing, DSS, scale models and numerical simulation, machinery, ecohydraulics, morphology.
Scientific committee
- Aronne Armanini (Trento University – IT)
- David Fortune (University of Exeter – UK)
- D.M. Ingram (University of Edinburgh – UK)
- Christophe Coulet (BRGM – FR)
- Yann Le Coarer (INRAE – FR)
- Gislain Lipeme (INSA Lyon – FR)
- Pierre Maruzewski (EDF – DPIH – FR)
- Farid Mazzouji (Gruner Stucky – FR)
- Edie Miglio (Polytechnica di Milano – IT)
- Stéphane Mimouni (EDF – FR)
- Giorgio Pavesi (Università di Padou – IT)
- Vincent Rebour (IRSN – FR)
- Véronique Roig (IMFT – FR)
- Sébastien Roux (CNR – FR)
- Pierre Ruyer (IRSN – FR)
- Albert Ruprecht (Stuttgart University – DE)
- Patrick Sauvaget (SHF – FR)
- Rudolf Schilling (Munich University – DE)
- Anton Schleiss (EPF)L – CH)
- Théophile Terraz (INRAE – FR)
- Olivier Thual (Toulouse University – FR)
- Ezio Todini (Bologna University – IT)
- Brigitte Vinçon Leite (ENPC – FR)
- Damien Violeau (EDF-LNHE – FR)
Organizing committee
- M. Abily (Université Côte d’Azur, France)
- O. Bertrand (ARTELIA, France)
- S. Bourban (EDF, France)
- G. Caignaert (Arts et Métiers Paristech, France)
- F. X Cierco (CNR, France)
- G. De Cesare (EPFL, Switzerland))
- O. Delestre (Polytech Nice Sophia – University Côte d’Azur, France)
- O. Fouché-Grobla (Le Cnam, France)
- B. Geisseler (Geisseler Law Firm, Germany)
- Ph. Gourbesville (Polytech Nice Sophia – University Côte d’Azur, France)
- S.Y Liong (NUS, Singapore)
- C. Münch (HEVS, Switzerland)
- V.T.V Nguyen (McGill University, Canada)
- P. Tassi (EDF, France)
- P.L. Viollet (SHF, France)