The International Conference on Aquatic Science & Technology (i-CoAST): Reflecting on the First 10 Years with the Journal of Coastal Research (JCR) and the Coastal Education & Research Foundation (CERF)

In 2012, I was in the final stages of my Ph.D. program and was conducting a research project on rip currents with the Korea Meteorological Administration. I searched for conferences in the field to present my research on rip current forecasting systems, and I attended the second International Rip Current Symposium (IRCS) in Sydney, Australia. The symposium was organized by Surf Life Saving (SLS) Australia, one of the world’s leading beach safety organizations, and was attended by experts from Europe and the United States. At the symposium, I was shocked to hear various presentations by researchers from around the world. At that time, most of the research related to rip currents in Korea was conducted to understand the physical phenomenon of rip currents rather than as practical research for the safety of beachgoers, and I was familiar with such research. However, the research on rip currents in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom was all about using the results to create practical solutions, such as building indicators and warning systems for the safety of beachgoers in conjunction with safety management organizations. It was also refreshing to see that lifeguards in charge of beach safety were actively presenting at the symposium, rather than just researchers working in universities or research institutes. Based on these memories, the International Conference on Aquatic Science & Technology (i-CoAST) is now working closely with the Seoul YMCA, which is in charge of beach safety in Korea.

While attending the second International Rip Current Symposium, I got to know Professors Stephen P. Leatherman and John R. Fletemeyer, both from Florida International University (FIU), who founded and led the symposium. Because the symposium was attended by a small group of experts, we had the opportunity for a range of conversations, so we expressed our desire to hold the third edition in Korea, and with a positive atmosphere, we were finally able to hold the third International Rip Current Symposium in Korea in 2014. We did not realize at the time that this was the beginning of i-CoAST.

At the time, the well-known Haeundae Beach in Busan, which is located in the SE part of South Korea, had been experiencing rip currents for several years, and there was a lot of interest in the prevention of rip currents across the country. In response to this interest, the third International Rip Current Symposium was held at Haeundae Beach in Busan in the summer of 2014.

As I was preparing for the third International Rip Current Symposium, I had two concerns. The first was whether I could engage a large number of people with the limited topic of rip currents, so I asked John and Stephen, the founders of the International Rip Current Symposium, to introduce me to a journal that could publish a special edition of the papers presented at the symposium. That was when I was introduced to the Journal of Coastal Research (JCR), where we could publish the results of the research presented. This was the first connection between i-CoAST and the JCR, and I still remember it vividly from September 2013.

My second concern was that I wanted to make the third International Rip Current Symposium not a one-time event but rather a series of good international events. So, in discussion with the organizing committee, we subtitled the third International Rip Current Symposium as the first Asian Water Safety Conference and laid the foundation for it to continue as an international event. This allowed us to organize the third International Rip Current Symposium in 2014, the International Water Safety Symposium (IWSS) in 2016 and 2018, and the international Conference on Aquatic Science & Technology (i-CoAST) in 2020 and 2023. Over the course of the five events, the name has changed a bit, finally settling on i-CoAST in 2020, but the authenticity has held up well (the last 10 years of i-CoAST are well documented on the conference website’s Past Event page: https://www.i-coast.org/html/?pmode=Past).

Although conferences have the great advantage of providing various presentations on a particular topic, they have the disadvantage of not publishing the results of the presented research in the form of papers. I am convinced that the main reason i-CoAST has been able to successfully hold five international conferences in 10 years is that we have a structure in place to publish the results of the conferences as papers with the dedicated cooperation of the JCR. After the each conference, the research presented at i-CoAST is written in the form of a research article according to the JCR’s standards and submitted online. It is then reviewed by a separate academic committee for each topic and finally confirmed by the editors of the JCR to be published as a special edition of the JCR. Since 2014, i-CoAST has published a total of four special editions of the Journal of Coastal Research (Special Issue Volumes 72, 79, 91, and 114), and is currently editing the fifth special edition (Special Issue Volume 116). Figure 4 shows the covers of the special editions that have been published in conjunction with JCR so far, and Table 1 shows the number of researchers and published papers presented at each event. So far, a total of 770 studies have been presented in the 10 years of i-CoAST, of which 464 papers have been published in the JCR.

As previously mentioned, the first edition of i-CoAST was the third International Rip Current Symposium. However, there was a major disadvantage in that the number of researchers studying rip currents was limited, not only in Korea but also globally. Therefore, we have been working diligently to diversify the research topics of i-CoAST to make it a sustainable conference. The first edition of i-CoAST, held in 2014, covered only topics related to rip currents, but in 2016, it covered more coastal ocean engineering themes, including rip currents. Since then, it has also included beach safety for beachgoers, as well as policy and tourism in the coastal ocean field. The most recent i-CoAST, which was held in 2023, also covered virtual reality and data visualization, which are known themes in advanced maritime fields. This diversification of themes covered at i-CoAST was driven by the judgment that research in a single discipline cannot solve complex real-world problems in a practical way and that various topics within coastal maritime fields can lead to reasonable solutions.

Although there are many journals covering specific disciplines, few journals in the world can publish the results of multidisciplinary research in the coastal arena. One of the biggest reasons for the continuous growth of i-CoAST over the past decade is the support of the Coastal Education & Research Foundation (CERF); the JCR, which has always been a reliable partner; and Dr. Makowski, the Editor-in-Chief of JCR, who understands our purpose and allows us to successfully carry out our mission. In the case of i-CoAST2023, research was published in a wide range of coastal fields, including engineering, energy, infrastructure safety, spatial information, policy, safety, rescue, tourism, and data visualization. Despite the spatial commonality of the coastal ocean, it is rare to find all of these disciplines covered in a single journal. However, by publishing research in various fields through special editions of the JCR, the results of interdisciplinary practical research have been slowly emerging, and the quality has been increasing. For example, Australia's SLSA, which leads the world in beach safety, and in Korea, the Seoul YMCA is one of the leading organizations responsible for the safety of swimmers at beaches. However, although the Seoul YMCA has been conducting rescue activities on beaches for decades, it has not documented them, so the know-how of their numerous safety and rescue activities has not been passed on. Therefore, since 2016, through an Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between i-CoAST and the Seoul YMCA, various practical contents on beach safety have been published and documented by i-CoAST. We believe that as these experiences are accumulated, more systematic and practical rescue activities will become possible and systematized.

With the end of the COVID-19 era, i-CoAST2023, which was held offline for the first time in 5 years, was a successful event, with more than 300 researchers and graduate students in related fields. For the conference’s 10^th anniversary, 240 papers were presented at i-CoAST2023 and researchers from 15 nations worldwide collaborated, including those who had not participated in the previous years because of COVID-19. At this past year’s i-CoAST2023, several researchers representing Australia, Thailand, and Indonesia were appointed as i-CoAST Ambassadors. With their support and innovation, i-CoAST will build a practical convergence research alliance in the coastal ocean field centered on Asia.

Currently, the establishment of the Asia–Pacific Convergence Research Alliance (APCRA) is under way, led by the Korea Society of Coastal Science (KSCS) in Korea, the Hydro Informatics Institute (HII) in Thailand, and the Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Indonesia. APCRA aims to create a place where researchers from various Asian countries can continuously gather to present and discuss their findings and problems, with the ultimate goal of drawing practical conclusions through multidisciplinary convergence research in the coastal marine space. We believe that the future of i-CoAST lies in creating a platform to solve various problems in the coastal marine area that may arise in the future. We plan to continue to publish the results of various studies that will emerge from this platform through the JCR, which is always open to new and interdisciplinary coastal research.

As we prepare for another decade of i-CoAST, we are looking to host the next conference in Bangkok, Thailand, and are in the process of meeting and discussing various forms of collaboration with the HII, Office Atoms for Peace (OAP), Royal Irrigation Department (RID), and Marine Departments of Thailand to cohost and organize the event.

The past 10 years of collaboration with CERF and the JCR have helped make the i-CoAST what it is today, and I am hopeful the next 10 years will allow the i-CoAST events to bring a new level of collaboration and innovation to the coastal research fields around the world.