This year marks the 30th anniversary of the avalanches in Súðavík and Flateyri in 1995. The events caused not only a great deal of loss of life, but also considerable damage to property and disruption to people’s lives and business operations.

Since the avalanches hit the communities, there has been a strong effort to build protective structures and adapt communities to the threat of this natural hazard. The Icelandic Engineering Association (VFÍ) believes it is important to remember these events by holding the next SNOW conference in Ísafjörður from September 30th to October 3rd.

In the past, VFÍ has hosted similar conferences in Siglufjörður in 2019 and Egilsstaðir in 2008.

The SNOW2025 conference is an international conference on flood control and is called: The International Symposium on Mitigation Measures against Snow Avalanches and other Rapid Gravity Mass Flows.

• The conference will focus on the following main themes:

• Risk management.

• • Planning, design, construction and maintenance of defence infrastructure. • The function of defence parks based on experience, experiments and numerical simulations.

The last few conferences have attracted not only a large number of Icelandic participants but also a large number of foreign scientists and professionals in the above mentioned fields. The conference is aimed at people from local authorities, administrations, operators of ski resorts, road construction, construction designers, supervisors and academics both domestic and foreign.

The organisers of the conference are Icelandic and foreign professionals, namely: Engineering Society of Iceland, the Icelandic Road Administration, the Icelandic Planning Agency, FSRE, the University of Iceland, COWI, NTNU in Trondheim, Norges Geotekniske Institutt NGI, SLF in Davos, Switzerland, and ORION Consulting slf.

Further information can be found on the conference website. Those interested are encouraged to read the conference's content and register for this interesting event.