Ahead of the Industrial Flooding seminar, we caught up with Lee Pitcher, Head of Resilience at Yorkshire Water. Lee explained his role and involvement with regards to the seminar, what he is looking forward to at the event and why it is important for engineers to attend.
Q: Could you briefly explain your role, involvement and experience with regards to flooding risk and protection?
Lee Pitcher (LP): I am an experienced member of a Senior Leadership Team with twenty years of experience in the environmental sphere of the water industry. Since starting my career in a front-line role, I have held positions in Operations, Asset Management, Customer Services and Business Support.
Following the floods in Yorkshire in 2007, I contributed to the Pitt Review and established the first ever Flood Strategy Team within Yorkshire Water that focussed on how, through partnership working, solutions could be found to alleviate flood risk for surface water.
In recent and past roles such as Flood Response & Recovery Manager and Flood Strategy Manager, I have sat on Local Authorities’ Flood Resilience Boards, Strategic Drainage Boards as well as fed in to the Regional Flood Defence Committees (now the RFCC) and appeared at numerous scrutiny, town and parish council committees across the region.
My current role is a dual one as Head of Resilience for Yorkshire Water and General Manager for the pioneering partnership “Living with Water” project where I lead the creation, implementation and delivery of the strategy to reduce flooding in Hull and the East Riding and build personal and community resilience.
Q: What are the main engineering challenges being encountered when it comes to preparing your assets against changes in climatic conditions?
LP: Specifically, around flooding, we need to make space for new blue/green engineering alongside more traditional grey options. Solutions in the future need to maximise the natural environment creating new amenity, reducing flood risk and therefore improve place-making. The biggest challenges for this type of engineering is not necessarily having the capability for the design and construction but moreover the cultural shift in seeing water on the surface more, understanding how to maintain more natural solutions and how policy can facilitate and encourage this change.
Q: Where do you think the main solution to rising sea levels lies in terms of retrofitting infrastructure?
LP: Firstly, it about understanding the true risk to any particular asset. The need for solutions to be underpinned by great data science is key in managing the risk. The importance of ensuring that broader risk is understood in terms of interdependencies across assets that sit within different organisations is pivotal in this. Only through working together and pulling data centrally, can we understand that risk and know where to focus attention.
Q: What are the developments in flood protection to watch for in the future?
LP: Flood protection built into properties is not currently seen as a benefit when buying a property to many homeowners. It almost feels like a concern. Future homes are those that can live with water, perhaps float, or can become submerged for a period without impacting day to day living. Examples are emerging internationally of such places. Therefore, flood protection needs to become something that is seen as a plus and not a minus, a benefit not a blight – mindset change will actually be a big development opening up new opportunities.
Q: Why do you think it is so important for engineers to join in the future discussion around industrial flooding?
LP: Great innovative and evolutionary engineering has been a backbone of industrial change in the UK and elsewhere for centuries. It’s one of the biggest facilitators that has allowed us to adapt and progress. As we face the greatest challenge impacting the future continuation of the human race, we need engineering leadership to show people the way by demonstrating practically that there is a way!
The Industrial Flooding seminar (18 March) will form part of a two-day climate change focused event with a half-day pre-seminar workshop on the new BS EN ISO 14090 standard, taking place on 17 March.
Key reasons to attend:
- Hear case studies from leading engineering organisations including E.ON, EDF Energy, Yorkshire Water, AWE and Anglian Water
- Make the most out of flood modelling to predict flow paths and rates to make the right planning choices
- Learn best practice for retrofitting current assets as well as designing new assets to withstand more frequent and increasingly severe weather events
- Ensure you are meeting the requirements of the new BS EN ISO 14090 standard by attending our half-day workshop hosted by Climate Sense and BSI
- Network with health, safety and environment, flooding risk managers, design engineers from engineering organisations as well as experts from government agencies, academia and flooding protection providers
To book your place, please visit www.imeche.org/industrialflooding.