International Union of Speleology (Redirected from Union Internationale de Spéléologie)

International Union of Speleology (French: Union Internationale de Spéléologie, UIS) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization to promote interaction between academic and technical speleologists from a wide range of nationalities for the purpose of developing and coordinating international speleology in all of its scientific, technical, cultural and economic aspects.

History

The international speleological community, mostly Europeans, agreed in a meeting in 1949 in Valence-sur-Rhone, France, to hold international speleological congresses beginning in Paris in 1953. The International Union of Speleology formed in 1965 upon the initiative of the International Speleological Congress in that year.

International Speleological Congresses

• France (Paris, 1953)
• Italy (Bari, 1958)
• Austria (Vienna, 1961)
• Yugoslavia (Postojna, 1965)
• Germany (Stuttgart, 1969)
• Czechoslovakia (Olomouc, 1973)
• Great Britain (Sheffield, 1977)
• United States (Bowling Green, 1981)
• Spain (Barcelona, 1986)
• Hungary (Budapest, 1989)
• China (Beijing, 1993)
• Switzerland (La Chaux-des-Fonds, 1997)
• Brazil (Brasilia, 2001)
• Greece (Athens-Kalamos, 2005)
• United States (Kerrville, 2009)
• Czech Republic (Brno, 2013)
• Australia (Sydney, 2017)
• France (Lyon, 2021)

Structure

UIS voting members consist of a delegate from each member country representing the cavers and speleologists of that country, rather than any of the official national bodies.

Its activities take place in a number of commissions and working groups, such as the UIS Informatics Commission formed in 1986, the Speleotherapy Commission and the Karst Hydrogeology and Speleogenesis Commission.

Publications

The UIS publishes the International Journal of Speleology.

Further reading

• Labegalini, José Ayrton; et al. (2015-06-01). Fifty years of the UIS. 1965–2015. Založba ZRC. ISBN 9789612547851.