Book excerpt: Hydraulic engineering is well-suited to the application of numerical analysis, and has therefore benefited greatly from the capabilities of the latest generation of powerful desktop computers. Demonstrating many of these benefits, this volume features papers from the Eighth International Conference on Hydraulic Engineering Software. Contributions come from scientists in industry, academia, government, and research organizations around the world, and emphasis is placed on the development of software in three main areas of interest, namely groundwater flow, open channel flow and pressure flow. There are also contributions on the subjects of data acquisition and experimentation, and flood and drought hazard assessment.