Archive News

Forthcoming BDS Events

The next BDS evening technical meeting will be on 2nd October 2023. This will be held at the ICE in London. Details shall be provided in the next newsletter.

Forthcoming BDS Events The next BDS evening technical meeting will be on 10th July 2023. This will be held at the ICE in London. The meeting will present an update from various ICOLD Technical Committee Representatives following the ICOLD conference. Full details of the event, how to join online, and how to attend one of our regional hubs for the evening are available on the Events page of our website. View More...	Forthcoming BDS Events The next BDS evening technical meeting will be on 10th July 2023. This will be held at the ICE in London. The meeting will present an update from various ICOLD Technical Committee Representatives following the ICOLD conference. Full details of the event, how to join online, and how to attend one of our regional hubs for the evening are available on the Events page of our website. View More...
Forthcoming BDS Events The next BDS evening technical meeting will be on 10th July 2023. This will be held at the ICE in London. The meeting will present an update from various ICOLD Technical Committee Representatives following the ICOLD conference. Full details of the event, how to join online, and how to attend one of our regional hubs for the evening are available on the Events page of our website. View More...	Forthcoming BDS Events The Annual General Meeting will be held on Monday 24th April 2023, starting at 6pm. This will be followed by a presentation on “New UK Dams – A New Episode” by Portsmouth Water, Anglian Water, Thames Water and SSE. Afterwards there will be a social event with a cash bar at the Westminster Arms. View More...
Forthcoming BDS Events Our next evening meeting will be held on Monday 6th March 2023, starting at 6pm. The presentation by Mike Hughes and David Holland is on the topic of ‘Grass cover – improving establishment and resilience to deal with increasing stresses’. Full details of the event, how to join online, and how to attend one of our regional hubs for the evening are available on the Events page of our website. View More...	Forthcoming BDS Evening Events Our next evening meeting will be on Monday 9th January 2023 and will cover "innovative underwater isolations for valve and pipework replacement". Full details of the event, how to join online, and how to attend one of our regional hubs for the evening are available on the Events page of our website. View More...
Forthcoming BDS Evening Events Our next evening meeting will be on Monday 21st November 2022. The presentation is titled ‘Improving PMP and PMF estimation for UK Reservoir Safety’ and will outline the findings of the Environment Agency-funded research project, the type of methods recommended for development of PMP and PMF estimation, and some of the challenges. This event will be held at the ICE Building at One Great George Street as well as streamed live. Full details of the event, how to join online, and how to attend one of our regional hubs for the evening are available on the Events page of our website. View More...	Forthcoming BDS Evening Events Our next evening meeting will be on Monday 21st November 2022. The presentation is titled ‘Improving PMP and PMF estimation for UK Reservoir Safety’ and will outline the findings of the Environment Agency-funded research project, the type of methods recommended for development of PMP and PMF estimation, and some of the challenges. View More...
Tonight’s BDS Meeting: Monday 3rd October 2022 This evening’s BDS meeting (Monday 3rd October) will be the “Design, installation, operation, management and testing of siphons in dams” and will provide an update on the development of CIRIA guidance (RP1131). View More...	BDS Conference 2022 - Registration Now Open The British Dam Society 21st Biennial Conference will be held at the University of Nottingham (Jubilee Campus) from Wednesday 14th until Saturday 17th September 2022. Registration is now open. View More...
BDS Conference – Registration opens soon The British Dam Society 21st Biennial Conference will be held at the University of Nottingham (Jubilee Campus) from Wednesday 14th until Saturday 17th September 2022. Registration for this event will open at 6am on Tuesday 5th July 2022 and close on Friday 12th August 2022 (midnight). View More...	28th Annual Meeting of the European Working Group on Internal Erosion (EWG‐IE) The 28th Annual Meeting of EWG-IE will be held from 18th to 21st July 2022 at the University of Sheffield. Approximately 50 people from around the world have so far registered for this event and it would be good to see as many delegates from the UK as possible. Registration for this event is possible here. View More...
BDS 21st Biennial Conference Final arrangements for the next BDS conference are being made (University of Nottingham - 14th to 17th September 2022). We are hoping to open registration for the conference during next week. A separate email will be sent out when the registration website goes live. View More...	Next BDS Evening Meeting The next evening meeting will be on Monday 11th July. This meeting will be an ICOLD Technical Committee Update. Short Presentations will be given by representatives of six technical committees regarding recent developments including new or emerging ICOLD bulletins. View More...
ICOLD - Free Technical Sessions The 27th ICOLD Congress starts in Marseille on Friday 27th May 2022 and runs until Friday 3rd June. Over 1267 delegates from 70 countries will be attending the event. The Organising Committee is offering non-delegates remote access to some of the technical committee workshops on Saturday 28th May and some special sessions on Tuesday 31st May. View More...	Next BDS evening meeting The next BDS evening meeting will be on 11th July 2022. The meeting will be held at the Institution of Civil Engineers, One Great George Street and online and will be titled “PMP / PMF Determination”. More details regarding this event will follow on the BDS Events Calendar. View More...
Last BDS evening meeting - now available The BDS International Lecture titled ‘Dam safety management in Queensland, Australia’ presented by Tracey Williamson on 25 April 2022 is now available to view online using the Listen Again section on the BDS website. View More...	Next BDS Meeting: AGM & International Lecture - Monday 25th April 2022 at 6pm This month’s evening meeting will be our AGM followed by our biennial International Lecture. This year we welcome Tracey Williamson, former BDS Chair and Fellow of the ICE, who will be presenting on Dam Safety Management in Queensland, Australia. She will compare and contrast the dam safety regimes practiced in the UK and Queensland, whilst highlighting some of the dams she has inspected. View More...
28th EWG-IE Workshop – Call for Papers The annual meeting of the European Working Group on Internal Erosion in Embankment Dams, Levees and Dikes, and their Foundations will now be held 18th – 21st July 2022 at the University of Sheffield. View More...	Lunchtime CPD Events This April’s lunchtime CPD session will be on 28th April 2022 and will cover the Preparation of Emergency Onsite Plans (Presenter: Matt Coombs - Binnies). You can access the event by clicking on the Microsoft Teams Link: Click here to join the meeting If you have any suggestions for a future CPD events, know of anyone willing to present or have any feedback – please do get in touch. View More...
Next BDS evening meeting Our next BDS evening meeting will be on Monday 7^th March 2022 at 6.00pm. The meeting titled “Guidance following the 2019 Toddbrook Reservoir Incident” will be presented by Kieron Kenny, Viktor Pavlov, Tim Daly and Eddie Robinson. View More...	Last BDS Meeting The BDS Prize Evening was held on 10 January 2022. Five presentations were made by the following Young Professionals: · Emma Bullen – Arcadis – Managing the dam breach modelling and mapping of reservoirs in Wales. · Amy Carter – Arcadis – Drivers for discontinuance: a multi-disciplinary approach to feasibility assessment. · Ciara Gill – Jacobs – Forge Mill Flood Storage Area: Lessons learnt. · Michael Jack – SSE – Maintaining our dams and contributing towards Net Zero. · India Hutchinson – Stantec – Grassholme Reservoir: Northern embankment stabilisation works View More...
Young Professional Group - BDS Great British Dam Bake-off We are delighted to announce the winner of The Great British Dam Bake-Off as Matthew Rhodes! A £50 Amazon voucher will be sent out shortly. View More...	27th ICOLD Congress and 90th ICOLD Annual Meeting The organizing committee of the 27th congress of ICOLD to be held in Marseille from 27 May to 3 June 2022 have announced that registration is now open. Information on registration can be found on the website, along with accommodation options. Please follow the link below for more details: https://cigb-icold2022.fr/en View More...
ICOLD Technical Committee Elections Following a recent invitation for BDS members to apply for current vacancies on the various ICOLD Technical Committees, two new nominations have been confirmed by the BDS main committee. View More...	BDS Prize Evening Results Thank you to our finalists who presented their papers at the BDS Prize Evening on Monday evening (10th January 2021). We are pleased to announce the winners for the Young Professionals Prize: 1st: Amy Carter – Arcadis – Drivers for discontinuance: a multi-disciplinary approach to feasibility assessment. 2nd: India Hutchinson – Stantec – Grassholme Reservoir: Northern embankment stabilisation works. 3rd: Ciara Gill – Jacobs – Forge Mill Flood Storage Area: Lessons learnt. We are also happy to present the winners of this year's photographic competition: 1st: Caban Coch Dam, Elan Valley, Wales - Mr Antony Butler 2nd: Stwlan Reservoir, Snowdonia - Ms Louise Shaw 3rd: Cilcain Reservoir No.1 - Hermann Stehle Congratulations to all those who took part. Details on where to view entries will be provided in due course. View More...
New Statutory Instrument - The Reservoirs Act (Panels of Civil Engineers) (Applications and Fees) Regulations 2021 A new Statutory Instrument has recently been published regarding reservoir engineer panels for England and Wales from 1 January 2022 and change of application fee from 1 April 2022. The Secretary of State and the Welsh Ministers have made a joint Determination to establish four joint reservoir engineer panels for England and Wales. View More...	Reservoir Flood Mapping The Environment Agency has now published the updated reservoir flood maps. This provides more accurate flood maps for 1,865 reservoirs which includes all large raised reservoirs that were in operation in October 2016. New guidance is published on GOV.UK and the new RFMs are available: Check Your Long Term Flood Risk – where you will be able to view the maximum reservoir flood extent during a wet-day and dry-day scenario. Defra Data Services Platform – where you will be able to download the maximum flood extents in a wet-day and dry-day scenario for individual reservoirs as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) layer or as a pdf map. View More...
Next BDS meeting: BDS Prize / Photo Competition Our next BDS evening meeting will be the BDS Prize Evening on Monday 10^th January 2022 at 6pm. Five papers have been selected from the entries to the BDS Prize Competition which is open to BDS members under 35 years of age. The submitted papers (2,500 words) are on a topic of dam engineering relating to the author's experience in reservoir research, design, construction, operation, maintenance, or supervision. The following entries will be presenting their papers (10 minutes) and answering questions for the judges and online participants. View More...	21st BDS Conference The 21st BDS Conference will be held at the University of Nottingham between 14th and 17th September 2022. The theme of the conference will reflect on how we rise to the challenges within our industry. This may be driven by specific reservoir events, introductions of new legislation, guidance, sharing of best practice and current views on a sustainable carbon neutral world. View More...
The Great British Dam Bake Off The Young Professionals Group are running a virtual baking competition for all BDS members as an engaging way to create learning resources for school children whilst showcasing the baking talents of members. The deadline for entries has been extended to Tuesday 4^th January 2022 to allow you baking time during the Christmas holidays. View More...	ICOLD 27th Congress - 90th Annual Meeting: 27 May to 3 June 2022 The next ICOLD Congress is due to take place in Marseille, France between 27 May and 3 June 2022. The BDS would like to encourage as many of its members to attend this event as possible given its close proximity to the UK. Full details of the event can be found on the congress website:- https://cigb-icold2022.fr/en/generalinfo/welcome/ View More...
BDS Evening Meeting – Monday 22nd November 2021 – Registration Required BDS Evening Meeting – Monday 22^nd November 2021 – Registration Required Our next BDS evening meeting will be on Monday 22nd November 2021 at 6:00pm. The meeting titled “Hydropower Extension Projects at Tarbela Dam, Pakistan” will be presented by Brian B Darling, Mark D Gill and Gonzalo Montilla Castro (Mott MacDonald). PLEASE NOTE: The ICE requires that attendees, either in person or online, register in advance of the event so that refreshments can be organised and so that online viewing links can be emailed in advance. Please use the following link to register https://www.ice.org.uk/events/hydropower-extension-projects-tarbela-dam-london View More...	Next BDS evening meeting Our next BDS evening meeting will be on Monday 22nd November 2021 at 6:00pm. The meeting titled “Hydropower Extension Projects at Tarbela Dam, Pakistan” will be presented by Brian B Darling, Mark D Gill and Gonzalo Montilla Castro (Mott MacDonald). View More...
Supervising Engineers’ Forum update The Supervising Engineers’ Forum was held at the University of Nottingham on 16^th September 2021. For the first time all of the technical sessions from this event were recorded. The BDS has completed editing these videos and is currently waiting for the ICE to host the files on its website. An email will be sent out to all members when the recordings are available to view. View More...	BDS Events Calendar The Events Calendar on the BDS website contains all the available information regarding forthcoming BDS events. The BDS also adds the details of several non-BDS events run by associated societies and organisations that we think may be of interest to BDS members. Please do keep an eye on this page for further BDS updates and other online events that may be of interest. View More...
POSTPONED: BDS Prize Evening The BDS Young Professionals Prize evening, scheduled for 22^nd November 2021, has been postponed until our January 2022 meeting due to insufficient entries into this competition. In light of this we are extending the deadline for receiving synopsis until 31st October 2021. Please can we encourage you and your colleagues (Under 35) to submit a 250 word synopsis by the extended deadline. Prizes for this competition are £500, £250 and £100. View More...	ICOLD Newsletter ICOLD have published their latest newsletter (No.19). A copy of the newsletter can be found here. View More...
ICOLD Circular Letter No. 1980 Some important dates regarding ICOLD activities for the remainder of 2021 are included in ICOLD Circular Letter No.1980. View More...	10th International Conference on Scour and Erosion Registration is now open for the 10th International Conference on Scour and Erosion. This conference will now be a virtual event held from 18th to 21st October 2021. View More...
Opportunities for representation on ICOLD Technical Committees We invite all members to apply to represent the interests of the BDS on a number of ICOLD Technical Committees (TC). The Job Description for our representatives can be found here. We are seeking candidates to take up the role from 1st January 2022 and require applications to be made by 15th October 2021 in writing to Andrew Thompson (Honourable Technical Secretary) at hontechsec@britishdams.org. Existing representatives (as applicable) can apply for a mandate to extend their role by up to three years. New representatives will receive a mandate for up to six years... View More...	BDS 15th Supervising Engineers’ Forum Registration for the Supervising Engineers’ Forum is now open. We are pleased to inform you that the forum will be an in-person event at the University of Nottingham on Thursday 16^th September 2021. Information regarding the event, provisional programme and COVID-19 precautions can all be found on the Events Calendar page of the BDS website. Registration to this event can be completed on the SE Forum page of the BDS website. View More...
BDS Young Professionals’ Competition - Now Open The 2021 BDS Prize competition is now open. Details of the competition are available here. This competition is aimed at our under-35 group of members and offers them a chance to showcase their contributions to dam engineering through a paper. The finalists will be invited to present their paper at our evening meeting on 22^nd November 2021 in London and the paper will appear in our journal. There are cash prizes for the winners. Candidates must submit a 250 word synopsis of their proposed paper by 10^th September 2021. View More...	BDS Photography Competition 2021 - Now Open The 2021 BDS photography competition is now open. Full details can be found here. You have until 22^nd September 2021 to submit your photos for the chance to win a cash prize, so please submit now and good luck. Please note that entries MUST be uploaded to the BDS website directly in accordance with the competition rules and the files will be checked to ensure the picture width is greater than 3000pixels and the file size is no larger than 6MB. View More...
Next BDS evening meeting - Monday 12th July 2021 The next BDS evening meeting is ‘The History and Development of the London Storage Reservoir System’ on Monday 12^th July 2021 presented by Bryn Philpott of Thames Water. The meeting will be held online starting at 6pm. More information and a link for the meeting can be found on the BDS website ‘Events Calendar’ page. View More...	Supervising Engineers’ Forum – Thursday 16th September 2021 (Action Needed) The BDS 15th Supervising Engineers’ Forum will take place on Thursday 16th September 2021. The BDS still hopes that this can be an in-person event at the University of Nottingham. If this is not possible then the forum will be held as an online event with a number of different technical sessions and a discussion period. Registration for this event will commence on Monday 2nd August. View More...
Independent Reservoir Safety Review Report An independent review of reservoir safety legislation and its application was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2020 and was led by Professor David Balmforth. The review report, published on 13 May 2021, provides a comprehensive assessment of the current safety regime in England. It makes recommendations for improving the safety regime and to strengthen the roles and responsibilities for the regulator, reservoir owners and engineers. View More...	Reservoir on-site emergency flood plans A ministerial direction to undertakers in relation to reservoir on-site flood plans for large raised reservoirs in England was published on 22^nd April 2021. Following the publication of the direction the BDS held an evening meeting on Monday 26^th April 2021 titled “Emergency Planning for Reservoirs”. The first part of this meeting heard from Jan Kiernan (Defra) and Tony Deakin (Environment Agency) who explained the new requirements and what is now needed from owners and engineers. A recording of this meeting can be found in the ‘Listen Again’ page of the BDS website. View More...
Reservoir owner and operator guidance: inspection information pack The Environment Agency recently (6^th July 2021) published new guidance for reservoir owners and operators regarding the creation and maintenance of an inspection information pack for their reservoir(s). This is the first of the new guidance recommended in the Toddbrook Reservoir Incident Independent Review (Part A). The new guidance can be found using the link below:- https://www.gov.uk/guidance/reservoir-owner-and-operator-guidance-inspection-information-pack View More...	ICOLD Vice-President Carlos-Enrique Medeiros ICOLD President Michael Rogers issued circular letter No.1979 on 7^th July informing the ICOLD community of the death of ICOLD Vice-President Carlos-Enrique Medeiros on 5^th July 2021 after a long fight against the Covid-19 virus. A copy of circular letter No.1979 can be found here. View More...
Upcoming Events There are a number of events coming up this year organised by the BDS and other organisations. Full details are available on the BDS website. Dates for your diaries: 6th to 9th July – 28th Meeting of the European Working Group on Internal Erosion at the University of Sheffield 12th July – BDS Evening event on ‘The History and Development of the London Storage Reservoir System’ presented by Bryn Philpott. This will be an online only event. 16th September – BDS Biennial Supervising Engineers Forum at the University of Nottingham. We are continuing with our plans for this live event, however, restrictions may require us to run a hybrid or online event. 4th October 2021 - BDS Evening event on ‘Reservoir Industry Review’ presented by Prof. David Balmforth. This will cover the key points of the recently-published review. We hope to be in a position to host this at One Great George Street with associated regional hubs and online streaming. 12th to 19th November – ICOLD 27th Congress in Marseille, France. POSTPONED This event has been rescheduled for 27th May 2022 to 3rd June 2022. 22nd November – BDS Prize Evening where the finalists of our Young Professionals Prize Competition will present their papers to the membership and the prize judges with the winners announced on the evening. This competition is open to members under 35 years of age. The winners of the BDS photo competition will also be announced during this evening meeting. Details for submission of your papers and photos will be sent out shortly. We are in the process of planning events for 2022. If you have any suggestions or would like to give a talk on an interesting dams-related topic, then please contact Darren Shaw (Darren.Shaw@arup.com). Your presentation does not need to be a full hour as we often combine presentations on similar topics to provide an informative evening event for the membership. View More...	Independent Reservoir Safety Review Report An independent review of reservoir safety legislation and its application was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2020 and was led by Professor David Balmforth. The review report, published on 13 May 2021, provides a comprehensive assessment of the current safety regime in England. It makes recommendations for improving the safety regime and to strengthen the roles and responsibilities for the regulator, reservoir owners and engineers. View More...
Reservoir on-site emergency flood plans A Ministerial Direction to require on-site flood plans for large raised reservoirs in England was issued to all undertakers on 22^nd April 2021. A copy of which has been put onto www.gov.uk for reference and information. Here are links to the Ministerial Direction and the associated guidance documents. Ministerial Direction – requirement for reservoir on-site emergency flood plans https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reservoir-on-site-flood-plans-ministerial-direction Guidance documents https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reservoir-emergencies-on-site-plan View More...	Next evening meeting Our next evening meeting with be The History of Thames Water Reservoirs on Monday 12^th July 2021 at 6pm. This meeting will be an on-line only event. Further details including the full list of presenters and the necessary links will be made available on our website shortly. View More...
Royal Society special issue - Intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and implications for flash flood risks Royal Society Publishing has recently published a special issue of Philosophical Transactions A entitled Intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and implications for flash flood risks organised and edited by Hayley Fowler, Conrad Wasko and Andreas F Prein and the articles can be accessed directly at www.bit.ly/TransA-2195. View More...	Next evening meeting Our next on-line evening meeting together with the AGM is on 26 April at 6pm. This will be followed by a presentation on Emergency Planning for Reservoirs. Further details including the full list of presenters will be made available on our website shortly. View More...
Update on the Toddbrook Part A review recommendations from the EA We have a message from Tony Deakin, Head of Reservoir Safety, Environment Agency which provides an update on the work arising from Part A of the Toddbrook review. Tony’s message is reproduced below. “You may recall the actions as a result of Part A of the independent review into the 2019 Toddbrook Reservoir spillway failure by Prof David Balmforth. At that time I set out a plan to respond to the Part A recommendations as follows: Deliverable 1 – Spillway Design Guide Deliverable 2 – Spillway Inspection Guide Deliverable 3 – Spillway Failure Mechanisms Research Deliverable 4 – Guidance on the contents of a well-structured package of information on the reservoir Deliverable 5 – Guidance to Inspecting Engineers Deliverable 6 - Guidance to Supervising Engineers Deliverable 7 – Guidance to Owners The team which supporting me to deliver this plan: Kieron Kenny – kieron.kenny@turntown.co.uk Viktor Pavlov – pavlovvv@binnies.com Eddie Robinson – robinsoned@binnies.com Tim Daly – tim.daly@mottmac.com Many of you have already responded to my initial request and have generously offered your support to develop this guidance, for which I am grateful. If you did respond and haven’t already been contacted by my team, then you should expect to be contacted in the next few weeks. If you haven’t responded and would like to be involved, please get in touch with me or one of my team. It’s important that this guidance is developed collaboratively by a representative cross section of the reservoir community and your support is necessary to achieve this. Part B of the independent review will consider the legislative and regulatory framework which governs the management of reservoirs in England. In anticipation of potential changes to legislation as a result of this review, we have adapted our plan and now intend to publish deliverables 4, 5, 6 and 7 as interim guidance, which will respond specifically to the recommendations of the Part A review, pending the future introduction of new or updated legislation. My team has been busy developing the necessary plans to prepare and publish this guidance in the late summer/early autumn of this year and look forward to engaging with those of you who so generously offer your time.“ View More...	Next evening meeting Our next on-line evening meeting is on 1 March at 6pm. Peter Mason will be presenting on “Concrete spillways – inspections and defects”. View More...
Dams and Reservoirs Editor We have a new editor of our journal Dams & Reservoirs. Anthea Peters has been our editor for many years and we would like to thank her for the fantastic contribution she has made in securing interesting content for our journal. The new editor is Andrew Pepper who once served on the Committee as our Technical Secretary and is very familiar with our industry and the needs of the membership. View More...	Election of new BDS Chair and Vice Chair I am pleased to announce that David Littlemore has been elected by the BDS Committee to stand as the next BDS Chair with effect from the AGM on 26 April. Rachel Davies has been elected as the next Vice-Chair. Congratulations on your new roles!
Nominations for new BDS Committee members Members should have received nomination forms for new membership of the BDS Committee and the Young Professionals Group. We have many spaces available on the committee from April to replace elected members who have completed their term. The deadline for nominations is 29 March. We hope you will consider actively contributing to the BDS. View More...	Extreme flood research The Environment Agency has started a new project which aims to improve Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP) and Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) estimation for reservoir safety. The project aims to assess the suitability of existing methods for estimating PMP and PMF and develop new methods and guidelines to ensure that we understand the risk posed to our highest risk reservoirs from extreme flood events. You can find further details here. Please click "Read More" for more information. View More...
NRW position statement on risk designation and first inspection of statutory reservoirs in Wales Natural Resources Wales have recently published an important position statement relating to the processes for risk designation and first inspection of statutory reservoirs of between 10,000 – 25,000m³ capacity. You can find the document here. View More...	ICOLD Congress postponed ICOLD has advised that the Congress in Marseilles has been postponed until 12-19 November 2021 on account of the pandemic. View More...
Outcome of the Defra consultation on on-site plans Defra has published the results on the consultation on on-site plans and presented the Government response. The key points are: On-site plans will be mandatory for all regulated reservoirs (‘high risk’ and ‘not high risk’ reservoirs) The plan requirements will be set with respect to the risk designation. Updated guidance on preparing on-site plans will be developed and published. New reservoir inundation maps will be published in 2021 by the Environment Agency. A strategy for training in relation to emergency planning will be developed. You can read the full report here. View More...	ICOLD General Assembly The ICOLD General Assembly met on-line on 30 November 2020. The meeting was chaired by ICOLD President Michael Rogers. The impact of the pandemic on the activities of ICOLD was discussed. The Annual Meeting scheduled to take place in New Delhi, India has been re-scheduled to 2023. Please click 'read more' to see a more detailed summary of the online meeting. View More...
ICOLD Call for Mentors ICOLD are seeking experienced engineers to act as mentors as part of the ICOLD 2021 conference in Marseille to assist our international young professionals. You can find full details here. View More...	January 2021 evening meeting Our next evening meeting (on-line) will be on Monday 11 January on “The use of dam break risk curves to optimise an ALARP assessment” presented by Hermann Stehle, Jon Holland, Rhys Coombs and Tom Wanner. The full details can be found here. View More...
Dams and Reservoirs Journal – position of editor Anthea Peters has decided to stand down as our editor of Dams and Reservoirs after many years in the position. We would like to thank Anthea for her fantastic contribution to the BDS through her work as editor. We are therefore seeking expressions of interest from any member who would like to be considered for the role. The successful applicant would join the BDS Committee as an Honorary Officer. If you are interested in this role please contact our Technical Secretary, Andrew Thompson (hontechsec@britishdams.org) by the end of November. View More...	BDS YouTube channel The BDS has recently created a playlist on our ‘YouTube’ page of videos from around the web related to dam safety and history that we feel may be of interest to our members. From educational videos about dam engineering principles to fascinating history of some of the UKs most iconic dams, we have curated many nuggets of information that provide insights into the world of dam engineering. The playlist can be viewed here. Whilst every care has been taken to check the links are appropriate, the BDS is not responsible for the content or comments on these 3rd party videos. View More...
EA and NRW reservoir safety guidance relating to the pandemic NRW has updated its guidance regarding compliance during Covid-19 restrictions and can be found here. The EA’s advice, published in April, remains valid and can be found here. NRW also advise that with the increased use of social media to showcase work there is an increased risk that photos, diagrams and other information may reveal sensitive detail and expose vulnerabilities. Even small pieces of information, when pieced together over time can be harmful if accessed by anyone with a malicious intent. Before posting material about reservoir construction or maintenance, you are advised to seek the approval of the reservoir undertaker. View More...	Updates from ICOLD The 2020 conference in New Delhi in November/December has now been officially cancelled as a physical event. The General Assembly and certain technical meetings will be held on-line in November/December (refer to the website). The symposium “Sustainable Development of Dams and River Basins” will now take place as a physical and virtual meeting on 24-27 February 2021. View More...
AGM and Binnie Lecture The AGM will be on-line at 6pm on Monday 5 October and will be followed by the Binnie Lecture by Mr John Gosden. Please refer to the event flyer and link on the website for further information and joining instructions. The winners of the Bateman Prize and the Photography Competition will also be announced during this event. View More...	Dams and Reservoirs Survey Further to our recent questionnaire on the proposed change to on-line only publication of Dams and Reservoirs from 2021 we can report that we shared the findings of our survey with ICE Publishing and that a paper copy of the magazine will continue to be published next year. View More...
BDS Seminar In lieu of the 2020 conference we are planning a virtual seminar this September using some of the material which would have been used at our conference. We are aware that many of our members will find it difficult to secure funding this year to (virtually) attend a one-day event and we wish to make access to the content as easy as possible. We therefore plan to present the seminar through four one-hour sessions. The sessions will be available on each Monday lunchtime through September, i.e. the 7, 14, 21 and 28 September. These will be free live events using pre-recorded presentations followed by live Q&A. View More...	Updates from ICOLD ICOLD has recently published its World Declaration on Dam Safety which you can find here. We have also received an update from Central Office on the status of the 2020 and 2021 annual meetings which you can find here. We have recently received an update from EURCOLD regarding the Hydropower-Europe initiative. Please contact Alan Warren for further details. As a reminder, BDS Members should contact the BDS Technical Secretary for the current login and password information in order to access ICOLD documents through their website. View More...
Opportunities for representation on ICOLD Technical Committees We invite all members to apply to represent the interests of the BDS on a number of ICOLD Technical Committees (TC). The Job Description for our representatives can be found here. We are seeking candidates to take up the role from 1 January 2021 and require applications to be made by 30 September 2020 in writing to Andrew Thompson (Honourable Technical Secretary) at hontechsec@britishdams.org. Existing representatives (as applicable) can apply for a mandate to extend their role by up to three years. New representatives will receive a mandate for up to six years. View More...	Professional development relating to Mine Waste Facilities Mike Cambridge has provided BDS with a short article outlining the professional development requirements to acquire competency in relation to mine waste facilities. You can find his article here. View More...
Photo Competition As usual we are running our photography competition. Full details can be found here. You have until 23 September 2020 to submit your photos for the chance to win a cash prize. Please note that entries MUST be uploaded to the BDS website directly in accordance with the competition rules. Good luck! View More...	Toddbrook Seminar and feedback Thank you for your many messages of praise for the Toddbrook Seminar. We had over 500 participants of which 97% reported they were happy with the event. We received a very large number of questions. A link will be provided by the ICE as soon as the Q&A session is available to view. We are planning a special edition of Dams and Reservoirs on the Toddbrook incident. The editor will welcome short accounts or thought pieces on the incident from the membership. If you were involved in the emergency response, were one of those affected by the evacuation or simply someone who would like to provide some comment on the events at Whaley Bridge then please write to us before the end of September – but please keep it brief! You can contact the editor at editor@britishdams.org. View More...
BDS Seminar In lieu of the conference we are planning a virtual seminar this September using some of the material which would have been used at our conference. We are aware that many of our members will find it difficult to secure funding this year to (virtually) attend a one-day event and we wish to make access to the content as easy as possible. We therefore plan to present the seminar through four one-hour sessions. The sessions will be available on each Monday lunchtime through September, i.e. the 7, 14, 21 and 28 September. These will be live events using pre-recorded presentations followed by live Q&A. The four events will be recorded and will be available to view again afterwards. View More...	Defra consultation on emergency planning We would like to remind you of Defra’s consultation about reservoir emergency on-site flood plans. The consultation is open until 10 August. Defra would like to hear your views about the type of information you need to assist you with emergency planning, what training would be useful to you and your staff, and for others in preparing and testing emergency plans for the reservoir and corresponding local plans. The link is here. View More...
ICOLD 2021 Innovation Award ICOLD are offering an Innovation Award, a cash prize of Euro1500 and free registration to the Congress in 2024 for winning submissions on the theme of innovation. Entries must be submitted by 15 October 2020. The presentation will be made in Marseilles during the Congress in June 2021. Full details are on the ICOLD website. View More...	Defra consultation on reservoir emergency onsite plans Defra has launched the consultation on the industry requirements for reservoir onsite plans. Please read the full news item for more information. View More...
ICOLD 2021 Papers for the Symposium in Marseille next year are now asked to submit their abstract by 15 June (extended deadline) to claire.bellone@mcocongres.com. The full papers are required by 15 September. Papers for the ICOLD 2021 Congress on any of the four questions must be sent to ICOLD from the national committees by 5 October 2020 so completed papers will be needed by the BDS by mid-September. If you intend to prepare a paper as the lead author could you please send an abstract to Andrew Thompson at hontechsec@britishdams.org by the end of June. Some restrictions on national committees apply. The four questions are: Concrete dam design innovation and performance Incidents and accidents concerning dams Surveillance, instrumentation, monitoring and data acquisition Dams and climate change The Initial Bulletin for the event is now available for further information. View More...	Toddbrook Seminar, 6 July Our next event will be the on-line seminar covering the incident at Toddbrook Reservoir and the subsequent investigations. To book and view this event, go the ICE website. If you previously booked a place in March prior to the postponement you may have been contacted already by the ICE and should not need to re-book. The event is free. Further details can be found on our website here. Note that a selection of presentations will be available to view on the ICE website ahead of the seminar from 29 June. The terms of reference for Part B of the Toddbrook investigation can be viewed here. View More...
ICE Green Paper consultation on Covid-19 and infrastructure The ICE are seeking responses to the Covid-19 and the new normal for infrastructure systems Green Paper consultation. The paper discusses the early lessons that the infrastructure sector should take away from the outbreak of Covid-19 in the UK and poses a number of questions to gauge what future infrastructure provision should look like. This consultation runs until 14 June 2020. Responses can be made by emailing policy@ice.org.uk. View More...	Online Event: Early Behaviour of Concretes in Large Dams The BDS International Lecture by Dr Quentin Shaw on ‘Early Behaviour of Concretes in Large Dams’ will be streamed on-line on Monday 18 May at 6pm. Refer to the website for full details. View More...
Toddbrook Incident Bulletin Further to the investigation reports on the incident at Toddbrook Reservoir last year, the Environment Agency has published a technical bulletin covering the key messages for the industry. The bulletin can be accessed here. View More...	BDS conference and other 2020 events It is likely that mass gatherings for conferences and evening meetings will not be permitted for some time to come. This has inevitably impacted our event planning, most notably the BDS Conference. In addition to the high risk of government restrictions affecting our ability to host this conference, we are mindful of the economic conditions arising from the present crisis that will prevent many members gaining financial support to attend the event. We presently have no plans to open registration for the conference. We are working with the University of Nottingham and we will confirm the date of the next conference as soon as we can. We plan to host the International Lecture by Quentin Shaw in May or June by video conference. Full details will be provided in the coming weeks. The Toddbrook Seminar is scheduled for 6 July. This will be presented only by video link and further details will be provided in due course. We are planning a one-day virtual seminar, the BDS seminar, on 18 September, to deliver presentations on a wide range of subjects. The Bateman Prize winner will be announced during the seminar. This event, and the Toddbrook Seminar, will be recorded so that you can either attend the event on the day or view it later through use of the recordings. For a limited time after these events, we will welcome written questions on the presentations from members. All questions and responses will subsequently be added to the event link. The AGM and Binnie Lecture will be held on 5 October. This is also presently planned as an on-line only event. View More...
ICOLD event changes The ICOLD 2020 conference in New Delhi has been further postponed and is currently scheduled to take place on 28 November to 3 December. Details are available here. The ICOLD Congress and Symposium in Marseilles, France is scheduled for June 2021. The deadline for abstracts for the Congress will be announced later in the year. The abstracts deadline for the Symposium has been extended to 15 May. The European Working Group on Internal Erosion meeting in Sheffield has been postponed to July 2021. The planned ICOLD 2022 and ICOLD 2023 Annual Meetings have been swapped: ICOLD 2022 will now take place in Gothenburg, Sweden and ICOLD 2023 will take place in Shiraz, Iran. View More...	Defra research on small reservoir risk published Defra has released the report on the three-year research project completed by Mott MacDonald on reservoir risk. The report reviews the risk designation process for statutory reservoirs, evaluates the number of small raised reservoirs in England and the risk that they pose. The work will inform a review of present legislation. The report can be accessed here. View More...
ICE Reservoirs Committee Further to the earlier call for new members of the Reservoirs Committee, the deadline for applications has been extended to 12 May. View More...	Regulatory guidance in relation to coronavirus You may wish to refer to the relevant regulatory guidance and position statement in relation to reservoir safety enforcement and COVID-19. The Environment Agency site is here; an information notice from NRW has also been circulated and is available here; and SEPA has also issued guidance and a regulatory position statement. View More...
ICOLD 2021 - Marseilles, France We wish to remind you that abstracts for the 27^th ICOLD Congress and 89^th Annual Meeting to be held on 4-11 June 2021 in Marseille must be submitted to ICOLSD by 30 April. All details can be found at cigb-icold2021.fr/en/#. If you have already submitted an abstract or plan to do so could you please inform our Technical Secretary, Andrew Thompson (hontechsec@britishdams.org) with the details of the paper. View More...	Toddbrook investigation reports The Government independent review report on the Toddbrook investigation was released on 16 March and can be found here. Access to a video on the report findings by CRT Chief Executive Richard Parry and the CRT investigation report can be found here. We strongly encourage members to take time to carefully study and learn from the findings. View More...
Calendar changes for events The current global health crisis has had an inevitable impact on the events that we had hoped to bring you this year. As the situation with coronavirus and any government restrictions over the coming months is very hard to predict, the forward planning for our events is also in a state of flux. Dates for future events will be determined when circumstances allow. View More...	Reservoir Committee – new membership The following notice has been prepared by the ICE Reservoirs Committee: “Applications are requested for forthcoming vacancies on the Reservoirs Committee. From the October 2020 meeting, the Committee will be appointing 1 Supervising Engineer and 3 All Reservoirs Panel Engineers to the Committee. The appointees will serve a term of three years, or shorter if determined by the Committee. Applications shall be submitted to the secretary of the Committee at Institution of Civil Engineers (at reservoirs@ice.org.uk), by 1 May 2020. Applicants must include a brief statement (200 words) on their suitability for appointment. All applicants shall have their employer’s approval to serve on the Committee, if appointed View More...
BDS Toddbrook Reservoir Seminar and International Speaker events postponed We deeply regret that, principally due to concerns regarding the coronavirus, we are unable to schedule the seminar on the Toddbrook Reservoir incident on 16 March. The new date proposed for the event is Monday 6th July at the ICE, London. The postponement will allow the membership to become more aware of the incident details ahead of the seminar. Firstly, we plan to host a technical site meeting at Toddbrook Reservoir site on 21 April, assuming that no health restrictions apply to such an event with small groups at the time. Details will be provided shortly. Secondly, we understand that the Government Independent Review report (which was originally due to be released at the end of 2019) will be released in the coming days. The CRT investigation report is likely to be released at the same time. Our members will now have good time to read these reports well before the seminar. View More...