The NovCare 2017 International Conference (Novel Methods for Subsurface Characterization and Monitoring: From Theory to Practice) will take place June 6-9, 2017 at the main campus of the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) in Dresden, Germany, a town with a famous historical centre. This conference, organized by the TU Dresden, the Kansas Geological Survey and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, is the fifth conference in a series that has proven to be an excellent forum for exchanging ideas and experiences related to the challenges of subsurface characterization and monitoring. Previous conferences in the series were in Leipzig in 2009, Cape Cod in 2011, Leipzig again in 2013 and Kansas in 2015.