A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civil engineering and public health. Human changes to the environment often increase the intensity and frequency of flooding. Examples for human changes are land use changes such as deforestation and removal of wetlands, changes in waterway course or flood controls such as with levees. Global environmental issues also influence causes of floods, namely climate change which causes an intensification of the water cycle and sea level rise. For example, climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent and stronger. This leads to more intense floods and increased flood risk.
Environmental engineering is a professional engineering discipline related to environmental science. It encompasses broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and also improve the health of living organisms and improve the quality of the environment. Environmental engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering and chemical engineering. While on the part of civil engineering, the Environmental Engineering is focused mainly on Sanitary Engineering.
The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enhancement of the environment in England.
Sir Richard Lake Olver FREng was the chairman of BAE Systems, one of the world's largest defence contractors.
Sir John Rex BeddingtonHonFREng is a British population biologist and Senior Adviser at the Oxford Martin School, and was previously Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College London, and the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser from 2008 until 2013.
HR Wallingford was previously the Hydraulics Research Station (HRS). It was created by the UK Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1947. The Research Station was based in Wallingford, near Oxford. It was established to deal with “looser boundary” problems such as coastal erosion, flood protection and the silting and scouring of rivers, estuaries and harbours. The Hydraulics Research Station was housed at Howbery Park as a government establishment until 1982, when it was privatised from the Department of the Environment to become Hydraulics Research Station Limited. It is known as HR Wallingford. During its existence, HRS contributed to advance hydraulics research. It also worked on water-related projects in the UK and around the world.
Professor Jean Venables CBE, BSc (Eng), MSc, DSc, FREng, CEng, CEnv, FICE, FCGI, MCIWEM is a British civil engineer who in November 2008 became the 144th President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the first woman to be elected to the position.
Dr Joanna Kennedy OBE FREng FICE,, is a British civil engineer and project manager who was Global Leader for Programme and Project Management at Arup until 2013. She is a patron of Women into Science and Engineering (WISE), which she helped launch in 1984. From 2015 until 2023 she was a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, latterly as deputy chair of the Trustee Board, and she chaired the project board for the Inspiring People redevelopment which was completed on time for the gallery's reopening, after three years closure, in June 2023.
In 2016 the Women's Engineering Society (WES), in collaboration with the Daily Telegraph, produced an inaugural list of the United Kingdom's Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering, which was published on National Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2016. The event was so successful it became an annual celebration. The list was instigated by Dawn Bonfield MBE, then Chief Executive of the Women's Engineering Society. In 2019, WES ended its collaboration with the Daily Telegraph and started a new collaboration with The Guardian newspaper.
Faith Helen Wainwright is a British structural engineer, and a director of Arup Group. She has led in the structural design of multiple landmark buildings including the American Air Museum and the Tate Modern and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath. Wainwright is the 2018 President of the Institution of Structural Engineers and sits on the Editorial Board of Ingenia.
Olawale Nelson Ogunshakin OBE is a British engineer and businessman. He is currently chief executive officer of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) based in Geneva, Switzerland. He was appointed to the board of Transport for London in September 2016.
Hayley J. Fowler is a Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University.
George Fleming is a Scottish civil engineer specialising in environmental issues. Educated at the Royal College of Science and Technology, Stanford University and the University of Strathclyde he is a doctor of philosophy. His research started with studies of the hydrology of the River Clyde that expanded to a range of subjects including, flood risk, dredging, nuclear waste management, decommissioning of North Sea platforms and contaminated land. He has written reports on flooding for the Institution of Civil Engineers and the British government. Fleming was involved in the planning stages of the Glasgow Garden Festival of 1988 and established a way of reusing dredgings from the Clyde to provide topsoil for the event. He has served as a non-executive director of British Waterways, Port of Tyne boards and for WRAP, a government quango whose aim was to promote recycling and resource efficiency. He is founder and chairman of the EnviroCentre environmental consultancy, of which his son, Duar, is managing director.
Dame Joanna Gabrielle da Silva is the Global Director of Sustainable Development at Arup Group.
Dame Dervilla Mary Mitchell FREng FIEI is an Irish engineer and a director and joint deputy chair of Arup Group. She led the management of the design for London Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5, and as of 2019 was project director for Arup for a 2-billion dollar airport terminal development in Abu Dhabi. She is a Fellow of two national engineering academies, and the holder of an Honorary CBE.
Catherine Jane Noakes is a British mechanical engineer who is Professor of Environmental Engineering for Buildings at the University of Leeds. Noakes specialises in airborne infections and the transport of airborne pathogens. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Noakes served on the Government of the United Kingdom Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
James Hall, is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks and former director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. He is director of research at the School of Geography and the Environment, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Engineering Science and Fellow of Linacre College. Hall is a member of the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission, and is chair of the Science and Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010. He was a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2009 to 2019. He was appointed as vice-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2021 with a view to become president in 2024.
Roger Alexander Falconer FREng, ForMemCAE, FLSW, FEurASc, is Emeritus Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering at Cardiff University, Independent Water Engineering and Environmental Management Consultant, Tidal Energy Consultant, and Chair Professor at Hohai University and the Yangtze Institute for Conservation and Development, China. He is an active researcher in modelling water and environmental processes in river, estuarine and coastal basins.
Tiziana Rossetto is a British–Italian structural engineer who is Professor of Earthquake Engineering at University College London. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2021.
Dr. Luiza C. Campos FICE, FRSC, GMICE is an engineer and Professor of Environmental Engineering at the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at University College London.
