Specialists in building and civil engineering, architecture, traffic and transport engineering, urban planning and avalanche science came together at the Fifth International Conference on Snow Engineering, organized by the Federal Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos 2004. This event belongs to a series of Snow Engineering Conferences held every four years since 1988. These conferences have become an important event for the international exchange of information on recent developments in snow engineering.

The following thematic areas were discussed in the technical sessions and are here presented in this volume:

- Transportation
- Housing and Residential Planning
- Snow Loads
- Ski Mechanics
- Hazard Mitigation
- Snow Technology and Science
- Avalanche Engineering