The New Zealand Society on Large Dams holds its 2026 Symposium at Novotel Rotorua Lakeside on 18–19 November, themed “Understanding and Managing Legacy Risk for a Resilient Future.”
The New Zealand Society on Large Dams (NZSOLD) holds its NZSOLD Symposium 2026 at the Novotel Rotorua Lakeside on 18–19 November 2026, running each day from 8.00am, according to Engineering New Zealand's event listing and the NZSOLD organiser site. The two-day programme carries the theme "Understanding and Managing Legacy Risk for a Resilient Future," and NZSOLD describes its aim as advancing dam safety risk management in New Zealand by improving how legacy risks in dams and stopbanks are understood, identified, analysed and managed.
The symposium is run by NZSOLD, the New Zealand Society on Large Dams, which operates as a technical interest group of Engineering New Zealand. Per Engineering NZ, NZSOLD works to advance dam engineering technology and the responsible development and management of water resources, with the stated purpose of protecting people, property and the environment from the effects of a dam failure or uncontrolled release of reservoir contents. NZSOLD also represents New Zealand on the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) and maintains the widely used NZSOLD Dam Safety Guidelines. The 2026 event is led by co-convenors Shreesh Basnyat and Peter Fox, with Andrew Balme as NZSOLD Chair (NZSOLD site).
The NZSOLD site states the symposium is aimed at dam and stopbank owners and managers, engineers, regulators, emerging professionals, and industry leaders and practitioners. The organisers outline a two-day structure: Day 1 covers legacy risk in the New Zealand dams and stopbanks context, how practice and regulation have evolved, and risk identification and information-management tools; Day 2 moves to risk analysis and evaluation for ageing assets and information gaps, risk-informed decisions across asset portfolios, and capability, succession planning and knowledge management. The format blends keynote speakers, case studies and project presentations with interactive elements such as live polling, table exercises and discussion, according to the organiser site. The detailed programme had not yet been published at the time of writing.
The Novotel Rotorua Lakeside sits on the shore of Lake Rotorua on Tutanekai Street, central to the city and close to the Energy Events Centre, per Rotorua NZ's venue listing. That listing reports the property has 199 guest rooms and 11 meeting and event spaces, with a largest room holding up to 350 people — ample for a national two-day symposium. Rotorua Airport is about a 10-minute drive from the city centre (Rotorua NZ), with rental cars, taxis, rideshare, shuttles and a daily bus service available, and air connections including Auckland (roughly 30–45 minutes) and Wellington (about one hour); Auckland is also under a three-hour drive. On-site accommodation at the host hotel plus nearby lakefront options make it a self-contained base for delegates.
As the central gathering for New Zealand's dam-safety and dam-engineering community, the NZSOLD Symposium is a sector-specific association conference that draws owners, regulators and consulting engineers from across the country to a single regional centre. For the business-events sector it illustrates Rotorua's continued role as a host for specialist national technical conferences, anchored by a lakeside full-service hotel with substantial meeting capacity and easy air and road access to the main centres.
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