WET News

APRIL 2016 WET NEWS 9 would be glad to contribute if flood risk management was organised over longer term timescales in which they could invest. I think the will is there." Delivery of flood risk management is currently focused on specific locations, a strategy that Robinson says will always be needed. However, he adds: "Taking a step back from that we should be thinking much more holistically about the way we are going to deliver for longer timescales, and not just within catchments but regions and carving them up into… Here's North-west England. Take it, form a programme, put your partnerships [consultants, contractors] in place and just go and deliver it. You're responsible for that. "The eye goes to this issue and this issue. If we just broke it down into those regions and said 'you own it, you're responsible' then I think we WhaT you didN'T kNoW! • My perfect evening is... Kids early to bed and spending quality time with friends • I drive... I don't – I take the train • It's not good for my image but I like… Newcastle United • My favourite TV/movie are… Twin Peaks / Get Carter (the original version starring Michael Caine) • I'm currently reading… Badasses, a biography of the Oakland Raiders back in the '70s • My greatest weakness is… Collecting things that I don't need would have a much more efficient, programmable route for delivery. And I think people would invest in it more." AECOM, with partner Capita Symonds, has a position on all three Consultancy Lots 1, 2 and 3 under the Environment Agency's (EA)Water and Environment Management (WEM) Framework. The lots cover modelling and mapping, and engineering design. "With Capita we either take project or Capita takes a project, or if it's large enough we'll work together, so the agency is getting the best of both of our knowledge skill," says Robinson. The WEM work is a rolling six-year programme for the delivery of a given flood scheme from inception and realising a problem through to construction and a finished product. It is six years continuously, and something that the Environment Agency put in place specifically with WEM in mind to speed up the delivery of its projects, and to make sure it gets as much delivery as it can through the programme. "They've got a very tight programme – a lot is expected of them," says Robinson. Business case Projects specific to AECOM include the Leicester Conveyance Scheme to reduce flood risk for 300 properties. This is a flood alleviation project mostly focused around the business end, and which has gone very rapidly through to construction. The agency now has contractors onsite, and they are re-landscaping areas to give flood flow conveyance. An ongoing project that AECOM is working on in Wessex is the Property Level Protection Scheme. This, says Robinson, is the other end of flood risk management where there is not a business case for a particular scheme in a location but flooding is a problem that people are experiencing. "That's a good one because it's the other end of the scales. The scale that is becoming more and more of interest in the industry because you've got your flagship flood schemes; your mid-level flood alleviation schemes that may or may not happen d e p e n d - ing on cost benefit; and then you've got what you can do at a local level to actually make a difference to people getting flooded, and making that happen is o¡en reasonably cheap because it's changes to buildings, small scale barriers around houses or plots. "For not very much spend you can make a lot of difference to someone's life. There's a big push in the agency and in the industry in general to make a difference at that level, which we're [AECOM] pleased to be part of." AECOM has established the best way to deliver modelling and mapping information is within larger packages of work where it is far more efficient to undertake the kind of modelling en masse as a kind of conveyor belt. Robinson says: "Conveyor as terms makes it sound simple but it really isn't but there are very clear stages to it and the more of it you are doing at one time the more efficiencies you can bring to the process. "We're doing a big package of works for 25 river locations, and some of them very long stretches of river, remodelling and remapping flood extents, flood depths, flood hazards. That's the intro end to that six-year programme so you need to determine the problem first and that's where the Lot 1 work comes in. There's a lot of that going on. "The pressure comes both within the agency and from dealing with issues arising from the flooding itself. When you have very widespread flooding as we've had, attention has to turn to dealing with the outfall of that." Reality Another project AECOM has is the Rec Programme (Recovery) where it is redesigning low level defence structures that have failed. "When you have an event of that size, lots of things fail. Even if they've effectively done their job, they're still not fit a¡erwards because they've been structurally damaged. You can imagine, over the last few months there's been a lot of focus on dealing with those things and perhaps less focus on delivery of the programme that is ongoing. "That's not a criticism. That's just the reality when you have that scale of things. However, the industry is quite well staffed these days and there's a lot of resource within flood risk management. I don't think the programme has been adversely affected, I think it's just more of a question of refocusing now on the delivery of the programme itself. A flood is a very powerful thing. Any engineered structure, even if it performs to a standard of protection, it's going to be le¡ potentially in a state of needing repair. With extreme flood events becoming more frequent, should the water companies be more involved in flood risk management? Robinson feels it is more a question of could they? "Given the right circumstances, building it in to their funding cycles, making sure the money was there yes, bringing partners together as a delivery team then yes, they should. In most locations a fundamental component part of that catchment scale solution that I think we should be looking at is the water company network. They're the ones collecting the water and delivering it to a river system. If you haven't got an understanding of that part, then you haven't got a hope dealing with the rest. "Particularly in urban environments where the business cases are o¡en the strongest for a flood alleviation scheme, the water companies are controlling their flow or storing their flow, delivering it to the river system. Imagine if you could slow that up, then you're making a pretty large difference to the component flow in a river system. If you can do that in a number of locations, you're making a huge difference, probably way more than any kind of single flood storage scheme upstream could achieve or a naturalised flood catchment scheme." According to Robinson, the water companies, the EA, and local authorities need to form top- level partnerships specifically to deal with flooding. "It happens at local scale. " The industry is full of good people who are all doing it day-in day-out at technical level but what is not happening is a top level partnership. If you pick a specific catchment location with a problem, then why isn't it that the delivery of the flood alleviation programme is owned by the EA and the water company and the unitary authorities that are part of that location in a partnership that everyone can see? Any why wouldn't they bring in the private sector as well to coordinate or help with the delivery of that work? According to Robinson, the dredging of waterways is not the solution, saying it is the answer in very few cases. "There are certain locations in the Somerset Levels where because they're relatively close to the sea you can say 'we'll dredge from here to the sea and we'll make a difference, we'll get rid of this water faster' but in most locations in this country it's far more complex than that. "Dredging can create more problems than it solves. It plays well to the layman because it's a concept everyone understands from playing with the sea on the beach – if you dig the trench deeper then water moves faster – but that isn't the solution. "The solution has to be a mixture of different ways of dealing with water, and the challenge is that in every location it's going to be different because we live in a complex place – heavily populated, a changing landscape across Britain from one mile to the next, farming practices, geology, infrastructure in the way, motorways, tunnels… You name it we live in a really complex place. The concept that all flooding has to be preventable we need to get over because in some locations flooding isn't preventable." "For not very much spend you can make a lot of difference to someone's life. There's a big push in the agency and in the industry in general to make a difference at that level..."

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