FutureWater attended the 4th Biohydrology International Conference “Walking on drylands” and awarded a prize to the best oral communication by a young scientist. For taking the end-decision, members of the Scientific Committee and of FutureWater scored all the candidates according to three main fields:

• Scientific relevance for the management and planning of water resources
• Applicability for the design of management strategies and usefulness for decision makers
• Dissemination quality (abstract and oral presentation)

In total, 21 studies were evaluated, including many high-quality contributions. At the end, the Award Committee decided to equally share the prize between two excellent contributions, i.e.:

• “Root type matters: different water uptake rates of seminal, crown and lateral roots of maize”, presented by Mutez A. Ahmed (Georg-August University of Göttingen, Germany and University of Khartoum, Sudan)
• “The key role of biocrusts in drylands water cycle”, presented by Sonia Chamizo (University of Granada, Spain)

The conference took place from 13-16 September 2016 and was held this year in Almería (Spain). The event was organized by the University of Almería and the Arid Experimental Research Station of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).