3rd ICE/CIWEM Yorkshire and Humber flooding and water quality conference

Professor Roger Falconer

Roger is Emeritus professor of Water and Environmental Engineering at Cardiff University, chair professor at Hohai University, China, and an independent water and environmental engineering consultant. He has held academic posts at the universities of Birmingham, Bradford, and Cardiff and has led large research teams on a wide range of research projects on flood and water quality modelling.

He has been involved in over 100 EIA studies worldwide and has published extensively in the field. He regularly advises the water industry and UK and international government agencies on flooding and water quality issues, and regularly participates in media and TV interviews on these topics.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Chinese Academy of Engineering (Foreign Member), Institution of Civil Engineers and Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management. He is an Honorary Member and Past-President of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering & Research (2011-15). 

Adam Ashman

Adam has 20 years experience working across infrastructure asset management, operations, maintenance and engineering. A chartered engineer, he is head of strategic planning at Yorkshire Water, focussing on important topics such as the climate, the transition to Net Zero, the adaptation to a changing climate, and the protection of our natural environment through the creation and implementation of long term sustainable improvements such as the Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans.

Adam is a huge advocate of solving problems through innovation and the multiple benefits that come from working and learning together within diverse partnerships.

Barry Hankin

Barry is JBA’s chief of environmental modelling and an honorary researcher at Lancaster University, specialising in modelling and management of whole-catchment resilience, advancing techniques for fully distributed modelling of nature-based flood risk and diffuse pollution measures to improve our understanding of resilience.

He led the winning team of the Defra Flood Modelling Competition in 2016, demonstrating advanced approaches to testing the resilience of Natural Flood Management (NFM) measures under a range of extreme rainfall scenarios. Since 2018 he has helped the Environment Agency (EA) build their first national unsteady, process-based water quality ‘HYPE’ model to investigate the effectiveness of Defra’s Catchment Sensitive Farming programme.

Barry has led significant science projects for EA/Defra, including a review of approaches for modelling and mapping wider catchment processes and contributed significantly to the EA Working with Natural Processes (WwNP) Directory. He led the development of the new Potential Areas for WwNP maps for England and Wales as part of the new Evidence Directory and went on to be a Co-I on Q-NFM, the Lancaster University UKRI / NERC project testing the effectiveness of NFM.

Chris Campbell

Chris is a chartered civil engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He is currently serving as chair of the ICE Yorkshire and Humber Regional Committee.

Having commenced his civil engineering career as a student trainee in 2004 on a Yorkshire Water AMP3 project in Leeds, Chris has since performed a number of varied engineering, commercial and leadership roles, and is currently business development and preconstruction director at Skanska UK, focussed on the specialist geotechnical contracting business Cementation Skanska. In this role he is engaged with varied customers and stakeholders across sectors throughout the UK civil engineering and construction markets.

In addition, Chris is a supervising civil engineer and ICE reviewer, supporting civil engineers and young professionals in their journey to academic and professional qualification at all levels.

Professor Colin Mellors

David Harris

David graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Liverpool and, following a brief period in a design office, decided he was better suited to working on site.

For the next 30 years he worked for civil engineering contractors on a variety of projects, more than half spent overseas, in Ethiopia, the Middle East, Malaysia and the Caribbean. The projects spanned several sectors and included earth fill dams, roads, railways, power stations, petrochemical plants, airports and buildings, progressing from “peg bashing” to project management.

During this period, David married and had four children, who provided sufficient excuse to procrastinate on his Institution of Civil Engineers membership application. The past 13 years he has worked as a project manager for Siemens Mobility Limited leading their construction projects, including the new Train Manufacturing Facility in Goole. 

Fiona Barbour

Fiona Barbour is a chartered civil engineer with more than 22 years’ experience, predominantly in the UK water sector, where she started as a hydraulic modeller specialising in urban flooding.

In her current role as business development manager at Mott MacDonald, she is working to expand the firm’s advisory services across Scotland and Ireland, having led its global water resources and flooding practice for five years.

Notable projects that Barbour has led include a review of the Grangemouth flood protection scheme for the Scottish government and an analysis of inland flood risks for Sefton Council, Merseyside, as part of an appraisal of its plan to safeguard the coastal town of Crosby.

She was also technical lead on the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office’s Global Future Cities Programme in Vietnam, which helped to improve Ho Chi Minh City’s flood resilience by creating a database of drainage assets.  

Barbour co-chairs the ICE’s Community Advisory Board on Sustainable, Resilient Infrastructure, advocating for resilience to become an integral design consideration for all engineers, not just specialists in the field.

James Brown

James is the 5th generation of the family to run The Lapwing Estate group. The Brown family have a strong history in farming for the past 120 years and immense passion for growing healthy, affordable food whilst enhancing the land and surrounding environment. Pollybell Farm now leads the way in sustainable farming practice in the UK.
 
Within the Farm there are three Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). These depict what a unique environment there is and highlight the work Pollybell does to tirelessly preserve and manage these.
 
The Lapwing Estate sits on lowland peat which has been historically drained for agricultural activities. This land however emits vast quantities of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. The Estate has developed a new model for “Rethinking peatlands”, which both sequesters and abates significant quantities of carbon, and also produces food with measurable positive environmental and social impact.

Jenny Longley

Jenny Longley (MCIWEM, CWEM) is the South Yorkshire flood risk manager at the Environment Agency having worked there for ten years. Prior to joining the agency, Jenny was a consultant at AECOM. Flood risk management has always been the focus of Jenny’s career and is a topic she is passionate about. From flood defence project management, strategic flood risk planning, partnership working with Risk Management Authorities, leading response and recovery to flood events, developing flood risk schemes and working with local communities to promote flood resilience, Jenny has had a varied career. 

In response to the 2019 floods, Jenny played a pivotal role in creating the Connected by Water partnership which transformed flood risk management in South Yorkshire. Jenny is incredibly proud of Connected by Waters’ achievements to date and is excited to be part of the future growth and development of this partnership. 

Lucy Marshall

Lucy is a senior member of the Environment Agency’s Humber team, which focuses on the strategic management of tidal risk around the Humber.   She is a physical geographer and spatial planner by training and has 20 years of experience in strategic environmental planning. Lucy holds a key role in the development of Humber 2100+, a new 100-year strategy for managing tidal flood risk. She works with a range of partnerships and organisations to enable adaptation to sea level rise and support nature recovery across the dynamic Humber estuary.

Mary Long-Dhonau

Mary has extensive experience in supporting and advising the victims of flooding. Having been flooded herself on many occasions, she champions the effective use of Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures and is vocally passionate about raising awareness of flood risk and PFR /Build Back Better to homeowners, communities, local authorities, government and relevant industries, including insurance and construction. Mary spends much of her time travelling around flood effected parts of the country in a ‘Floodmobile’ (a house on wheels packed full of resilience produce) supporting those newly flooded in their recovery.

Mary runs her own consultancy FloodMary.com specialising in PFR, has represented the ‘voice of the flood victim’ at government level, appears on national TV and radio and speaks at many flood risk management national and international conferences. She is the author of an eBook ‘Property Flood Resilience, Stories from homes and businesses who have made adaptations to help them recover more quickly after a flood’, a co- author of the Household Guide to PFR, & the Household Guide to Flood Recovery as well as a member of the Defra PRF round table and spearheaded the award-winning Cumbria Property Resilience round table.

Mike Woolgar

Mike Woolgar has over 35 years’ practical experience in the water, urban development and water management sectors in the UK, Europe and the lesser developed world. In the UK he has worked on regulation, policy, advisory services, assurance, monitoring, due diligence and expert services, and project preparation in the regulated utilities, flood risk management, and resources sectors.

He has extensive experience of infrastructure development in regulated/private sector water and waste systems, water resource planning, water systems development engineering and climate change resilience. He was recently chair of the Expert Panel for the London Flood Review, examining causes and potential solutions following the 2021 floods, is an independent member of the Thames RFCC and has been supporting Ofwat and some water companies on the promotion and development of some of the new Strategic Resource Options for improving water supply resilience.

Rachel Glossop

Rosa Foster

Rosa is passionate about climate adaptation, nature, people, equity, and collaborating to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. With a BSC (Hons) in Applied Geology, and a MSc in Water Management, Rosa has 21 years experience of operational delivery leadership across a range of environmental disciplines for the Environment Agency.

Rosa has been involved in the Leeds and Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commissions since their inceptions and formally became climate commissions director at the University of Leeds in May 2024. Rosa is also a member of the Yorkshire and Humber Forestry and Woodland Advisory Committee.

Both the Leeds and Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commissions are independent with cross party support. They convene leaders from across all sectors to support, guide and mobilise ambitious, fair and integrated action on climate and nature across city and regional scales. The Commissions’ are evidence led, and focus on creating the well informed spaces needed to explore the difficult issues that we face constructively, seeking shared solutions, catalysing new ideas and celebrating success.

Steve Wragg

Steve Wragg is the head of highway asset management at City of York Council responsible for all highway asset management services, maintenance and improvement programmes and bridges and structures management. The service is also responsible for winter, drainage, flood and wider emergency response across the network, the delivery of flood risk management programmes and the management of the city walls and other heritage assets.

Prior to this Steve worked in flood risk management for more than 25 years and has experienced the industry and its changes from a range of roles across this time. After initial employment as a consultant engineer, Steve worked for the Environment Agency, Hull City Council and City of York Council leading Flood Risk Management programmes and teams. He has been involved in all of the significant flood events across the Yorkshire and Humber region during this time.

Will McBain

Will leads Arup’s work related to adaptation and resilience (water environment) in the UK, India, Middle East and Africa. A director of Arup, he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management and a leading proponent of integrated solutions to water and environmental challenges of all kinds.

Will is Arup’s framework director on the Environment Agency’s (EA’s) Collaborative Delivery Framework, on which Arup is Lot 1 Consultant in the Northeast/Yorkshire and Midlands hubs. He is on the Board of the EA’s Decarbonisation Accelerator Programme and is Arup’s project director for three of the EA’s Adaptation Pathway Pilots.

He is also Arup’s topic lead for the water environment aspects of the Development Consent Order for Thames Water’s South East Strategic Reservoir Option (SESRO). He lives in Ilkley and has strong views about the need for a more joined-up approach to addressing urban flooding and river water quality issues.

Dr Richard Crowder

Steena Nasapen-Watson

Mike Dugher

Emma Brown

Emma is strategic partnerships manager for Yorkshire Water, leading a highly skilled management team to support partnership working across the region. The portfolio of partnerships include key collaborations which focus on delivering holistic solutions to complex solutions such as flood resilience and bathing water quality.  The team has a key focus on nature based solutions, education and engagement with our communities alongside investment priorities.

Joining the water industry through the companies graduate programme over ten years ago, she has gained a wealth of experience across flood resilience and waste water operations.

Elliot Gill

Elliot Gill works with utilities, regulators and governments, advising on the management of urban flooding and pollution. In a career spanning more than 30 years, he has worked for research and consultancy organisations and now holds the post of market sector lead for urban drainage at Stantec in the UK and Ireland.

Elliot authored the Storm Overflows Evidence Project for the government’s storm overflows task force, providing a first-of-its-kind assessment of the costs and benefits of different storm overflow control policies. This work has informed the proposed near-£60bn, 25-year programme of wastewater improvements in England. He has also advised the Welsh government on its policy options and works with a number of water companies throughout the UK to help them plan for and implement storm overflow improvement programmes.

Elliot is a fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management and a chartered water and environmental manager.

Lucy Dowley

Accomplished leader with a track record of strategy, planning and delivery across the infrastructure asset management lifecycle with a focus on maximising sustainable outcomes.

A sustainability technical specialist unlocking the opportunities across the Water & Environment sectors through optimisation of ecosystem services outcomes, partnership working, innovation and green finance options. Using expertise in environment and sustainability to develop and deliver innovation frameworks and strategic partnerships to address the environmental, climate and affordability trilemma. 

Working on behalf of public and private organisations’ executive teams to lead initiatives across innovation, catchment systems thinking, ESG strategy & planning and climate risk & resilience. Leading diverse teams across matrix business models, delivering transformative investment and performance plans including delivery of nature and climate positive outcomes.

Skilled in oversight of multi-£BN and multi-£M investments, including end-to-end delivery of multi-year programmes, managing a complex range of government, regulatory, NGO’s, private and community stakeholders & partnerships.