Gallimaufry: News and Events from the British Dam Society

Following the successful 20th Biennial BDS Conference in Swansea, we would encourage all attendees to participate in the survey circulated to the 294 delegates, if you haven't done so already. This will ensure we make the next conference even more successful. Once again, my thanks go out to everyone for the organisation and participation of such an excellent event. Regarding the next conference, if you have a suggestion for a venue or would like to help organise this event, please get in touch with anyone on the BDS Committee.

The following awards and competition prizes were presented at the BDS Conference 2018:

• The Bateman Award for the authors of the best paper published over the past 2 years, which made a significant contribution to dam engineering, was given to Tim Blower and Scott Davidson for their paper entitled ‘Safeguarding Critical Infrastructure against Landslip Risk on a large dam in Albania’.

• The YEF ICOLD Paper Competition 2018 for papers submitted to the BDS Conference by an international member of ICOLD's Young Engineers Forum was awarded to Louis Coetzee from the South African National Committee on Large Dams for his paper entitled ‘Smart Construction Monitoring of dams with UAVs’. BDS provided a place at the BDS Conference 2018 and £500 towards expenses. Louis also presented his paper at the Conference.

• The Best Young Professional Presenter Award 2018 for the best presentation at the BDS Conference 2018 by a BDS Young Professional Member was awarded to Alasdair Walker.

• The winner of the Photographic Competition 2018 with prize money of £200 was Jamie Lancaster; second place and £100 was presented to Paul Farnell; and third place and £50 was presented to Dougie Armour. Photographs can be viewed on the BDS website.

Please can we draw your attention to the recently launched BDS initiative, which is aimed at helping BDS Members of any age or discipline to achieve their goals within the dams and reservoirs profession, be that to improve knowledge regarding the design, operation, and maintenance of dams or to develop the necessary skills to become a Qualified Civil Engineer (QCE) under relevant reservoirs legislation. You can find out more on the website or contact a member of our Young Professionals Steering Group.

There is a technical site visit to Williamsgate Service Reservoir in Cockermouth, Cumbria on 15th November 2018, hosted by United Utilities. This is a great opportunity, especially for trainee Supervising Engineers, to see inside a service reservoir.

The next BDS meetings is on 19th November 2018 from 18.00 at the ICE London. Regional hubs will be held in Glasgow, Warrington and Cardiff, where you can join a group to watch the event. These events are becoming more popular and it's a great way to network with other dam professionals.

Finally, don't forget to sign up for news and emails on the BDS website so you don't miss out on the monthly eNewsletters and please let us know if you have any news or announcements related to dams and reservoirs, which you would like to share with BDS members in the next eNewsletter.

Thank you

Tracey Williamson

BDS Chair

Following the autumn 2015 flooding the Cabinet office carried out a National Flood Resilience Review, published in Sept 2016, which included in its recommendations to ‘develop further the statistical methods to reduce uncertainties in flood estimation, including taking account of long term variability and trends’.

In order to achieve consensus on the way ahead the Environment Agency hosted a workshop on 24 and 25th Sept 2018 to agree a vision and research priorities for UK hydrology for the next 25 years. This followed a questionnaire earlier in 2018 and was attended by around 45 people, including government agencies, academics and consultants. Ian Scholefield and Alan Brown attended on behalf of the reservoir community, both as members of Reservoir Safety Research Advisory Group (ReSRAG). 23 projects were identified, including updating PMP and these will be developed/prioritised further over the next few months. The most likely outcome is that there will be a more explicit statement of uncertainty with any flood estimate, so for example FRS4 may need updating to provide guidance on whether spillways are designed for the median (best) estimate with say a 50% chance of being exceeded and if so how the panel engineer/owner considers the uncertainty in the selected flood estimate when calculating risks and implementing appropriate risk reduction measures.

Alan Brown and Ian Scholfield