75th Anniversary | One of my proudest articles was in 2001.


I interviewed the manager of the UK’s largest flood relief scheme which has played a vital role in taming the River Medway in the southeast of England. This river runs through my old hometown and after experiencing what locals call ‘The Great Flood of 1968’, the Leigh flood barrier was constructed to protect it. To this day the barrier continues to play an important role in alleviating floods, and after hearing my older family members’ stories about the devastating impact flooding can have, it has given me a greater appreciation of the varied and important functions our industry undertakes. Looking to the future, although it has been viewed as the ‘old man’ or ‘forgotten giant’ of the power industry in the past, hydropower is working hard to ensure its role within the clean energy transition is fully understood and supported. And even with its seniority, just like the waterpower and dams industry, IWP&DC is also proving that it still has many years left in it yet.


Patrick Reynolds, Former Acting Editor and Contributor


I grew up in Scotland, where water is plentiful. Near home were hills with peaks above the snow line in winter and they also held a wonderful long reservoir, and dam. A fantastic sight, whatever the season. I learned that engineering could copy nature’s ways, in holding water and letting flows run – continuously. Powerfully. I learned, too, of water used similarly but to generate hydropower in many power plants across the Highlands of Scotland, built – as was then – in recent decades. Exciting, indeed. Looking to university, I found myself choosing between civil and electrical engineering. The former won out as I could see what was made, up in the hills. In my studies I first found that hydropower could be built to tap potential on many scales, and in reading and referencing, I found IWP&DC in the university library. Hours and hours of reading. Especially as textbooks on hydropower were few and far between to bring together hydraulics, rivers and channels, geotechnics and groundwater, and at times tunnels and caverns, and always generators and governors, and transformers. Civil and electrical engineering, together. Water, rock, and society.


Studying civil engineering also brought me


more awareness of the importance of water supplies to public health. Dams and reservoirs again. In addition, such engineering creations could serve food supply through irrigation projects. Multipurpose uses and value to communities in so many ways. After writing a thesis on hydropower, by graduation I had become aware that hydropower development had stopped in the UK. I had no contacts or workable routes, then, to work with such projects overseas or


22 | May 2024 | www.waterpowermagazine.com


those owning, designing or building them. Later, I found a wonderful, exciting shift was possible, if markedly uncommon, to move from engineering into journalism – and to specialise in covering civil engineering. In reporting on a variety of projects, I again learned more about dams, hydropower and irrigation, and multipurpose projects across the world. Subsequently, an opportunity arose to join a new editorial team being formed on IWP&DC, approaching the mid-90’s. In doing so, I had the chance to dive deep and long into more of the technical aspects of projects and power plants, including appreciation of operations and maintenance, rehabilitation and upgrades, seismic risk, dam leakage repairs, and tunnelling for headrace, tailraces, surge shafts, and powerhouse caverns. With the retirement on the horizon of greater numbers of those who built dams and hydro projects in peak building periods, I became aware of concerns about knowledge transfer and the huge challenge presented in legacy understanding, communications, and simply passing on – holding onto - knowledge. Then, it the energy industry was changing,


too, as privatisation and cheap alternatives rolled out across the world, chiefly in gas-fired power plants. More appreciation for how hydro can compete in the mix was needed, and of marginal costs, and funding possibilities. The challenge was even more complex to evaluate for multipurpose projects. Civil engineering structures were needed more and cost more compared to the new, fast response alternatives. The understanding of hydro, and dams and reservoirs, having relatively low long-term operating costs was no sufficient in the new business and funding landscape. Looking at business and economics became


very interesting. Weighting for societal good and then, later, carbon credits were further interesting developments in how multilateral and project finance, and indeed export credits, and more, might interplay. Interestingly, the complexities of the ever


growing power grids, and the need for both base load and fast response power plants, and also the requirement for the entire web to be dynamically stabile, opened a new door of opportunity for one part of hydropower in particular: pumped storage. This has only increased with time, even as such developments call for notable civil engineering investment, such as in tunnels and caverns. More visible are dams and barrages, coming in a variety of designs and sizes. They hold a beauty, offering even the possibility of some favourites, as people may consider bridges. With IWP&DC, I enjoyed the opportunity to learn of so many, and even visit some, far from home. But what first caught my eye, and heart, was close to home. I had no idea my studies would open the door to the world- leading journal, and then to subsequently join its ranks – twice: first time in the mid 90s – after an interlude seeing wider construction internationally, and the oil & gas and chemicals sectors, and how infrastructure investment choices work there too – there came again an opportunity to report, with Carrieann, about 15 years ago. As I currently edit a sister magazine of IWP&DC – Tunnels and Tunnelling International. Of course, hydropower and pumped storage come up. How could they not? They always hold a fascination, in their technical aspects as well as their business, finance, and economic dimensions, and many other challenges in today’s world.


Above: Leigh flood barrier


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