This year’s IGU Congress was dedicated to the 100^th anniversary of IGU, which was established in Paris in 1922. On that occasion, the Commission presented an overview on its own 30-year-history, as only group dedicated to water within IGU (soon to be available on the website).

Owing to remaining uncertainty regarding possible travel restriction related to Covid-19 there was a limited attendance of member. This even more so as travel restrictions for colleagues from China were still in place while colleagues from Russia were banned to attend the Congress due to the Ukraine crisis.

The submission process of sessions was very different from all previous congress as the organisers unilaterally decided to limit submission to one per person. I.e., in contrast to previous meetings where the chairs of the Commissions submitted a consolidated list of session agreed upon with their respective SCs, this was not allowed at this event. Instead, each proposed session needed to be submitted by a different person rendering the submission process cumbersome and confusing. As a result, we had people registering a session on our behalf that were not even members of the Commission. At the same time, this process resulted in a much-reduced number of submitted session themes initially comprising 3 themes that were later reduced to two as one proposal (Nexus approach to water security) did not receive the required number of related submissions. Finally, the following 5 x sessions were held with Frank Winde and Liliana Zaharia acting as respective session chairs:

• Frank Winde: Water between need and fear: management approaches to water security and risks

2 x sessions of 1.5-2h each at Tue, 19.07.2022, Centre Pantheon Sorbonne, Rue Saint Jaques 111-113, Room 307

A total of 10 x papers were scheduled of which only 3 were presented. While no apologies were received indicating reasons for the absence it is assumed that the extreme heat and lack of air conditioning at the venue resulted in such high number of no-shows. On initiative of the chair, some of the freed-up time was used to add an unplanned paper of an attending PhD-student and lively discuss her findings together with other PhD-students in preparation of her next day presentation. Except for the chair, none of the presenters were members of the Commission.

• Liliana Zaharia: Water sustainability in a changing world: hydrological, societal and ecological perspectives

3 x sessions of 105’ eachatFri, 22.07.2022, Geographical Institute, Rue Saint Jaques 191, Room 304

A total of 14 x papers were scheduled, 4 of which came from members of the Commission. However due to medical reason prof. Karthe could not attend, while all 3 colleagues from Romania did present.

Repeated request of prof. Zaharia to the conference organisers to reschedule the meeting away from the last day of the conference week were unfortunately not responded to resulting

Snap shots from the Congress (from top to bottom: presenters at the Water between need and fear session, IGU banners on the boat cruise of the gala dinner, Frank and Liliana at the conference venue)