Welcome to issue 3 of 2016. This issue includes overviews of some of the more recent bulletins published by ICOLD.
We are pleased to include a paper by Dr Andy Hughes on the landmark Hampstead Heath case. This adds to his BDS presentation he gave in October at the ICE and includes a more detailed account of the judge's considerations.
We also include a number of technical papers. The first is by Tony Judge and details the works undertaken to improve the drawdown capacity of the Loch Gleann A'Bhearraidh Reservoir through installation of a permanent additional scour capacity. The second paper is by Hans Rönnqvist and Peter Viklander. The paper summarises a study to investigate how varying degrees of internal instability of silt–sand–gravel soils affect the grading characteristics due to suffusion. Our third paper is by Ezzeldin Yazeed Sayed-Ahmed et al. and investigates the factors affecting the amount of heat generated in the hydration process during concrete hardening. They describe how it is important to minimise this as much as possible in order to prevent generation of undesired cracks through the dam's body and explore options to counteract these effects.
Our final technical paper is by Dave Crook and explores the issues of trees on dams. His paper is written as a thought piece and as a start for discussion. We would welcome any comments and discussions within Dams and Reservoir and there will also be an opportunity to explore this issue further at the Supervising Engineers' Forum in 2017.
Finally we include a summary of the Young Engineers' Forum, their discussions and the technical papers that were given during the day.
We would like to remind our readers that we welcome comment and discussion on our published papers. If you would like to provide any discussion on the papers included in this issue, or previous issues, please email the editor (editor@britishdams.org).
We are currently looking for papers for our 2017 issues. Please could I request that our readership continue to highlight topics and schemes that they think would be of interest to the wider readership and contact the editor with a proposed title or subject in the first instance? Please note that our editorial panel are on hand to provide mentoring and guidance in preparation of papers, should you require.
Changes to the application procedure for Supervising Engineer Panel and All Reservoir Engineer Panel
The Reservoir Committee have launched the revised guidance on the application procedure for Supervising Engineers. The new approach considers a suite of ‘attributes’ and aims to aid the applicant in providing more guidance on the level, depth and breadth of knowledge required to achieve panel status. All new applications and reapplications should be in line with the new guidance and use the standard forms.
Supervising Engineers' Forum
The BDS's 13th Supervising Engineers' Forum will be held at the National Conference Centre (formerly known as the National Motorcycle Museum) in Solihull, near Birmingham, West Midlands, on Thursday 27th April 2017.
The Forum will comprise four sessions including an open forum discussion. The presentation topics are as follows, with a particular emphasis on the direct impact on or experiences of Supervising Engineers.
Experience of new legislation in practice
Assessment, maintenance and repairs, in particular (but not limited to)
instrumentation/data analysis/drones
large valves/scour culverts
trees/vegetation
Incidents (e.g. floods) and exercising of on-site plans
The application process and progression to the All Reservoirs Panel
Registration details will be available on the BDS website nearer the time.
Upcoming events
| 16 January 2017 | ICE London | Banja Dam and Devoll HPP scheme, Albania |
| 20 February 2017 | ICE London | EA reservoir research projects update |
| 20 March 2017 | ICE London | AGM and technical meeting: Genale Dawa 3 HEP, Ethiopia |
| 27 April 2017 | National Conference Centre, Solihull | Supervising Engineers' Forum |
| 8 May 2017 | ICE London | Butterly Reservoir |
| 2 October 2017 | ICE London | Managing our non-operational reservoirs |
| 20 November 2017 | ICE London | BDS prize meeting |
| 16 January 2017 | ICE London | Banja Dam and Devoll HPP scheme, Albania |
| 20 February 2017 | ICE London | EA reservoir research projects update |
| 20 March 2017 | ICE London | AGM and technical meeting: Genale Dawa 3 HEP, Ethiopia |
| 27 April 2017 | National Conference Centre, Solihull | Supervising Engineers' Forum |
| 8 May 2017 | ICE London | Butterly Reservoir |
| 2 October 2017 | ICE London | Managing our non-operational reservoirs |
| 20 November 2017 | ICE London | BDS prize meeting |
A full calendar of future events and meetings is provided on the BDS website, which is kept updated with any changes to the publicised events calendar. The website also includes a web link to those events held at the ICE London and a facility to ‘listen again’ to some of the previous presentations.
