In 2001 I was invited to take on the task of being Honorary Editor of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Water and Maritime Engineering. It was clear from the onset that there was limited overlap between water and maritime engineering and the papers in the journal were generally either in the areas of water or maritime engineering; few covered both disciplines. The first task for our panel was therefore to keep the journal going in its present form, as it was then, but also to set about the challenging task of splitting the journal into two; namely Water Management and Maritime Engineering. This objective was enthusiastically supported by Leon Heward-Mills, Publisher at Thomas Telford, and our panel then set about the task of forming the new journal. In undertaking this task I was fortunate to have the benefit of the experience of long-established panel members, in particular Rodney White, Robert Sellin, Andy Eadon and Graham Thompson, alongside newer colleagues such as Ian Cluckie and Dragan Savic. I am very much indebted to Leon, and his team (particularly Ben Ramster, Matt Joyes and Richard Sands), and my past panel colleagues for all their assistance and support in setting up the new journal. I am also particularly grateful to the ICE Water Board, especially the Chair John Lawson, for all their support and encouragement for the new journal.
The journal was formed in 2003, new members were appointed to the panel and the vision for the new Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Water Management was to become the leading international journal for practising engineers working in all fields of water management. The main objectives were: to publish quality papers with a target audience of practising engineers; and to attract and publish more papers from overseas authors, particularly with the support and encouragement of our newly-appointed international editorial panel members. Within three years the journal has gone a long way to achieving its ultimate goal. In particular, the internationally recognised Science Citation Index impact factor for the journal has more than doubled in the past two years, taking it from 0.182 in 2004 to 0.396 in 2005. This compares very favourably with many other journals, such as the IAHR Journal of Hydraulic Research. The number of papers from overseas authors has increased considerably and we are near our target of 50%; for example there are two papers in the current issue from overseas authors. The number of papers being submitted to the journal has increased considerably and the journal has recently been increased in size from 48 to 64 pages.
The journal has already published one highly successful special issue, Flood Modelling (volume 159, number 1), primarily focused on the work of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Flood Risk Management Consortium, and three other special issues are now well in hand. These special issues include: Hydroinformatics, Flooding in Europe, and Groundwater, with other special issues being planned in fields such as waste water treatment and land-use management. These successes have been due to the hard work and support from all of the panel members and particularly those that have been on the panel since the formation of the new journal and are now retiring. These members include Ian Guymer (University of Warwick), David Balmforth (MWH), David Webb (Halcrow), David MacDonald (Black and Veatch) and Ruth Davidson (Golder Associates) and I wish to express my personal thanks for all their efforts. I would also like to express my appreciation to all of the remaining panel members, who will continue to develop the journal for the future. The increasing international profile of the journal has been much due to the support and activities of the international panel members, and I am grateful to them for all their efforts in raising the journal's international profile.
In this, my last editorial, I would like to pay a special tribute to my Deputy, namely Dr Emma Harris of Environment Agency Wales, who is now taking over from me as Panel Chair and Honorary Editor of the journal. Emma has a breadth of experience in water management, ranging from her work at Southern Water, Jeremy Benn Associates, as a research fellow at Cardiff University and, more recently, at EA Wales. I am confident that the journal will continue to grow and flourish under her leadership and with the support of the experienced and new panel members.
Finally, I would like to express my personal thanks to the many members of ICE who have either written in, or expressed their positive support for, the journal, which covers ICE's most fundamental and essential discipline. We may have survived on this planet without bridges, traffic, waste, soils and so on, but we have never survived without water. I wish the journal every success in the future and look forward to seeing Water Management continue to flourish by becoming even more international and widely read by practising engineers worldwide.
