| 75th Anniversary
My work at HR Wallingford Working with such a wide variety of specialists is a real
bonus of my role. Our dams team is surrounded by people working on fascinating projects that I probably wouldn’t get to see in a larger consultancy. My background is in civil engineering. I first specialised in irrigation engineering and then moved onto dam safety, becoming a Supervising Panel Engineer for the UK Reservoirs Act 1975. After a decade working on the design and construction of sustainable development projects related to water all over the world, I joined HR Wallingford in 2012 to set up and lead the dams and reservoirs team. The HR Wallingford team’s skills and experience in embankment dam breaching mechanisms, numerical and physical modelling, and reservoir sedimentation were already well-developed and well-respected globally. Building on this amazing track record, we grew the team by including more traditional engineering consultants. This has enabled us to provide services in dam safety inspection and reporting; reservoir extreme hydrology studies; and optioneering and design of remedial works on dams. I’ve also got stuck into HR Wallingford innovation, and I’m particularly proud of bringing a new dams- focused perspective to our wider research work. For example, the ARCboat, designed by the HR Wallingford equipment team for river gauging, has been repurposed to undertake remote controlled bathymetric surveys of reservoirs. This is safer, quicker, and more environmentally friendly than the traditional manned vessel methods. Although commonplace now, it was pioneering when we started it. The freedom for our team to follow curiosity-
led research ideas has also led to the very first smart app-based O&M manuals for dams, the first satellite monitoring system for dams (DAMSAT), and development of the unique EMBREA-MUD numerical model that simulates the breaching processes of tailings dams. These tools all enable people to live alongside dams more safely across the world, which brings me great job satisfaction.
The best bits Probably my most memorable experience at HR
Wallingford was helping the BBC TV Top Gear team to get presenter Richard Hammond to safely drive up the face of Wales’ Claerwen Dam in a Land Rover. Unlike some of his other exploits there were no crashes that time, and no damage to the dam. In my day-to-day work, there have also been lots of wonderful dams and reservoir related projects, including:
Risk Assessment for Reservoir Safety (RARS). I led an international team of experts in dam risk to develop a new method of quantitative risk assessment for UK dams. This has since become best practice across the nation and its widespread adoption has probably reduced the number of dam breaches and saved lives. Working for a year in Tajikistan at Nurek dam (then the second highest dam in the world at 300m). We analysed sediment flows through the 70km long reservoir, modelled these numerically for many future decades and developed a sediment management strategy to maximise the effective life of this critical hydropower facility.
Authoring the Dam Safety Handbook for Welsh Water, a major dam owner in the UK. This small handbook explains dam engineering concepts in non-technical language, for the benefit of new staff that may not have a traditional engineering background. It has helped Welsh Water grow their pool of trained and diligent staff interested in dam safety.
Probably the most inspirational experience for me was visiting our friends and dam breach research collaborators USACE at their ERDC research centre, and having a tour of their impressive facilities in Vicksburg, Mississippi. This included visiting a huge Bond-style centrifuge built so they could scale gravity. Even our cutting-edge facilities in the UK don’t have that. I also love visiting dams in person to carry out dam safety inspections. I end up in some of the most beautiful scenery on the British Isles, often with the whole place to myself. And whilst dams and reservoirs sometimes get a bad reputation for interfering with the local ecology, I have found they can be a haven for wildlife. During my early morning inspections I’ve been lucky enough to see otters, deer, rabbits, pike, voles and the like. A jellyfish and a crocodile, both seen at UK dams I supervise, were totally unexpected.
The future is digital We are lucky in the UK that our system of specialist
panels of dam engineers and responsible dam owners have meant there has not been loss of life due to a dam breach for nearly 100 years now. However, our ageing dam infrastructure combined with worsening environmental conditions due to climate change, and ever decreasing budgets available for dealing with these challenges could be an issue in coming years. The good news is we are blessed with ever
increasing computational power and larger data sets. Combine these with 75 years of HR Wallingford dams and reservoir experience and I feel sure that we will be able to address future dam challenges, in the UK and across the world. For example, our space-based DAMSAT system can monitor remote and hard to reach dams at a fraction of the cost of on-the-ground monitoring, and this kind of technology means our industry should go from strength-to-strength when it comes to safety, and that we will be able to protect vulnerable communities across the world.
Left: HR Wallingford facilities at Howbery Park in Oxfordshire
www.waterpowermagazine.com | May 2024 | 53
Below: Craig’s most unusual find in a resevoir
Above left: Craig Goff at Claerwen in Wales
Above right: Inspecting a dam
Below: Craig with TV presenter Richard Hammond
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