Call for Abstract & Student Posters

Submission Deadline: Closed

Read these instructions entirely before submitting your abstract at the end of the page.

The multidisciplinary variety of conference topics provide presenters the opportunity to develop sessions to satisfy interests in a variety of water-related topics. The successful outcome will satisfy the interests of seasoned and young professionals, academics, students, non-profit groups, and the general public.

Abstracts should relate to the various interdisciplinary causes, options and solutions to help mitigate climate-change impacts related to water uses and management. Abstracts addressing the science, legal, institutional and public perspectives should also include integration of overarching socioeconomic and cultural considerations when applicable.

Below are some highlighted topical sessions that have been selected for the conference. Enter the session codes (3-digit number) during your abstract submission. If your abstract would fit well in one of these sessions, please let us know.

Technical Sessions & Panels:

• 204) PFAS Remediation Strategies for Resilient Water Systems
• 205) Wildfire in the Watershed: The Overlooked Risk to America’s Water Supply
• 206) Brandywine Flood Study
• 207) Women in Water
• 211) Tunnelling for Resilient Water Infrastructure: Design, Construction, and Performance Across Stormwater, Water Supply, and Energy Systems
• 214) The Urban Delaware River: - Its value, environmental and social concerns, and path forward
• 216) SIFT-ing for Solutions: Coordinating Science and Management Strategies to Address Freshwater Salinization
• 217) Weaving the National Hydrofabric: Reference Data, Elevation, Models, and Linkages
• 218) From Managing Water Quantity to Improving Water Quality: Scaling Collaboration in Pennsylvania
• 219) Scaling the Deluge: Advances in Large-Scale, Real-Time Flood Mapping and Forecasting
• 221) Implementing a Watershed Control Plan to Address Cryptosporidium in the Raritan River Basin
• 222) Strategic Action on PFAS & Emerging Contaminants: From Statewide Planning to Community Impact
• 223) Direct Water Use by AI Data Centers: Challenges, Insights and Approaches to Inform Regional Management for a Resilient Water Supply
• 224) How a Dynamic, 3D, Fully Coupled Water Column and Sediment Model Unpacked the Dissolved Oxygen Drivers in the Delaware River Estuary
• 226) Co Producing Knowledge for Water Solutions: Opportunities and Challenges
• 227) Part 1: “Planning for CSO Control in the Delware River: Long-Term Strategies, Coordination, and Program Design" and Part 2: “Implementing CSO LTCPs in the Delaware River: Progress, Adaptation, and Looking Ahead"
• 228) The Next 50 Years of the Clean Water Act
• 229) From Workforce to Leadership: Building the Next Generation of Water Professionals
• The Water Workforce Continuum
• 230) The United States Geological Survey National Water Availability Assessment – Creation, Use, and regional water availability applications
• 231) Stream Restoration and Floodplain Reconnection: Lessons Learned in Implementing Successful Projects
• 232) Addressing Legacy Pollution with Brownfields Solution
• 233) Applied Earth Observations for State and Local Water Resilience
• 234) Regional Perspectives on Green Stormwater Infrastructure
• 235) Flood Mitigation
• 236) Addressing Regional Energy-Water Challenges

Workshop:

• 225) Working in Teams and Making Teams Work: Power Dynamics, Bias, and Communication Skills for Effective Water Resources Collaboration
• 237) End-to-End Water Data Science: From Acquisition to Prediction with Machine Learning

Examples related to water resources in any field:

1. Water Laws and their impact on western water supplies.
2. Planning Hydroelectric Infrastructure (Dams) – Planning for 50 to 100 years
3. Land Hazards and Risks – Mitigating landslides, subsidence and other risks
4. Winter Snow and Ice Processes –Changes in timing, magnitude, avalanches, ice breakup
5. Housing, Transportation, Communications, and Energy Infrastructure
6. Technology Innovations –to improve understanding and mitigating changing climate and hydrologic conditions
7. Community Perspectives and Approaches – Observations of changes mitigation practices used with respect to housing, local infrastructure, fishing, etc.
8. Research Needs – Recent and projected changes
9. Energy and Water Supplies impacts and mitigation
10. Agriculture and Farming impacts and mitigation
11. Land Hazards and Risks – Landslides, avalanches, subsidence and other risks and mitigation
12. Extreme Precipitation and Flooding to Drought – Mitigation options and solutions
13. Water Quality – impacts to water quality and mitigation to maintain water quality
14. Intersecting water laws and aquatic habitat conservation and development
15. Challenges for Coastal Communities –Rising tidal levels, frequent floods, changing groundwater supplies, changing coastal dynamics, saltwater intrusion

AWRA's commitment to community, conversation, and connection guides our efforts in putting this specialty conference together. Compelling presentations are the foundation of any conference, and the AWRA 2026 Annual Conference is no exception. We look forward to your abstracts, which will help provide insights and inputs to stimulate informative conversation.

Come to our conference, make connections, and contribute to these important conversations!

Types of Presentations

Individual Oral Presentations
Oral Presentations are typically organized with four to a 90-minute session (sometimes fewer) grouped according to the same or similar topics. This typically allows 20-minutes for each presentation with 10 minutes for questions (for all session presenters combined).

Panel Sessions
A panel session is a 90-minute session with live group discussion on some topic of your choice. Where three or four experts (may include you) briefly introduce their viewpoint and then interact with one another and the audience. Panel sessions focus on a unified topic, with multiple brief (10 -15 minutes each) presentations and a moderated discussion by the panel organizer. Panel sessions require just one abstract, submitted by the organizer. Please advise panelists that they must pay the registration fee.

Workshop
A workshop is a session where a group of people engage in intensive discussion and activity on a particular subject or project. A workshop is typically instruction-based, introducing a new concept, spurring participants to investigate it further on their own, or demonstrating and encouraging the practice of actual methods.

Posters
Poster presentations are an important part of our meeting. The poster session format provides authors with an excellent opportunity to interact and command greater audience interest than is normally available. By means of illustrations and brief texts mounted on large poster (bulletin) boards, authors will have an opportunity to communicate the results of their work to meeting participants on a one-to-one basis for a longer period than is normally available for oral presentations.

Abstract Preparation

Before submitting your abstract online, please have all of the following information with you:

• Name, title, employer, full mailing address, email address, phone number of the main contact, presenter, and co-presenters. Note: Co-author(s) information will not be collected nor included in the conference program/abstract summaries.
• Type of presentation: topical (full 90 minute session, oral, poster, either oral or poster, panel.
• Abstract title.
• Abstract (350 words or fewer).
• Credit card information for payment of non-refundable abstract submittal fee ($25). Payment of the abstract fee must be made before abstract submission.Multiple abstracts can be submitted but can only be made ONE AT A TIME after paying for each abstract separately. Each abstract is a non-refundable $25 fee.
• All presentations are in-person only. Presenters not registered for the conference will have their information removed from the program before the conference.

Membership in AWRA is encouraged but is not a requirement for presentation. However, registration and relevant registration fees are required. Oral and poster abstracts are being sought on any topics dealing with, or related to, the conference themes.

Abstract Submission Process

• Start the abstract submission process by paying the fee. You must be signed into your AWRA account.
• Do NOT select more than one abstract submission fee at a time.
• After payment is submitted, you will receive a link to the Abstract Submission Form in your confirmation email and on the confirmation page.
• Complete the form and click Submit.
• If you would like to submit another abstract, you may click on the link on the Thank You page. 

• Purchase only ONE abstract submission fee at a time.
• You must use the same AWRA account to submit the abstract fee and submit the abstract.
• Abstract fees are non-refundable.