Glossop meeting
The Engineering Geology Group of the United Kingdom is proud to host the 2026 edition of its prestigious Glossop meeting in Delft during the IAEG 2026 congress, on Tuesday 3 November 2026, in the late afternoon. The recipient of the 2026 Glossop award will present their work before the Glossop Medal lecture. The event will be broadcast live. The meeting will conclude with a ticketed dinner held in Delft. The detailed programme will follow.
Opportunities to sponsor the meeting are available at this location.
The 2026 Glossop Medal lecture: a Must-Attend event at IAEG 2026
Ann Williams, BECA, New Zealand, named the 2026 Glossop Medal recipient!
Ann is both Technical Fellow (Engineering Geology & Hydrogeology) and Operations Manager with the consulting firm Beca Ltd, based in New Zealand. She has a career spanning more than 35 years with projects across New Zealand and in Australia, parts of South-east Asia and the Pacific. Throughout she has demonstrated a passion for engineering geology, and for delivering a values-driven and strategic approach to leadership.
Ann is a Past Chair and Life Member of the New Zealand Geotechnical Society Inc. (NZGS), and past Vice President (Australasia) and Honorary Member of the International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment (IAEG). She is currently Chair of the IAEG’s Women in Engineering Geology (WEG) group. Ann is a Registered Professional Engineering Geologist (PEngGeol), Fellow and recent Board member of Engineering New Zealand. Ann was the recipient of the 2022 NZGS Geomechanics Lecture Award.
Outline of Ann Willams' keynote - Dewatering: where science and art meet
Dewatering, the removal of water from soil or rock, is a practice that has been applied for centuries - a strategic intervention (often a necessity) that enables safe, stable, and efficient construction below the water table. But that doesn’t mean we fully understand what is taking place, or even that we have got it right, as we see both expected and unexpected effects from lowering groundwater level. Dewatering will have an increasingly important role as we experience the impacts of climate change. This lecture explores the multifaceted world of dewatering, where technical know-how (science) meets creative problem-solving (art). A range of case studies, from different parts and in differing ground conditions of New Zealand are shared, to examine the diverse purposes and sometimes inventive applications of dewatering: dewatering to facilitate construction, but also for ground source heating, creating capacity in an aquifer for storage of rainfall, landslide stabilisation, seismically induced dewatering and the reduction of liquefaction risk. Dewatering can cause ground settlement, contaminant migration, disrupt ecosystems, alter hydrological balances, and pose construction and regulatory challenges. The case studies demonstrate how dewatering influences our environment and that its success depends on a dynamic interplay of design and engineering geological intuition.
