IMPACT: The Project Team

For over 50 years, HR Wallingford has been a leading European centre for research and the application of knowledge in all aspects of water management and engineering in river catchments, estuaries, coasts and offshore.

Over recent years, the Company has won substantial programmes of research relating to water engineering and water policy from the European Commission, UK Government Departments and Environment Agency.

Several large-scale international research facilities are located at HR Wallingford, and the Company is also at the forefront of the application of advanced computational methods for the simulation of the natural water environment. The Company's research is applied through its complementary provision of practical advice and project-specific studies for a wide spectrum of international clients. HR Wallingford supports the European Commission's objectives through participation in EC programmes of research, international co-operation and exchange of researchers. The Company actively shares its knowledge and resources with many universities and a wide range of industrial partners from all countries of the European Union.

HR Wallingford is an independent research and technology organisation, constituted as a non-profit-distributing Scientific Research Association. Any internally generated surpluses are reinvested into future research for the benefit of the water and environment sector. The Company employs approximately 200 staff, including recognised international experts with complementary academic appointments and over 70 scientists with post-graduate qualifications. Its extensive laboratory and computing facilities are based on a 36-hectare science park site at Wallingford, near the historic University City of Oxford and with easy access to London and its major airports.

Mark Morris is a Civil Engineer with over 14 years experience of undertaking consultancy and applied research projects in the water industry for HR Wallingford. This provides considerable relevant experience for the IMPACT project. Amongst projects, he has applied rapid assessment methods to assess the impacts of the catastrophic failure of dam structures within the UK and to prioritise further investigation. He has undertaken detailed dambreak modelling to predict potential flood flows and depths in urban areas and also research on the breaching of tidal embankments. He has also undertaken many safety assessments in the UK for structures potentially at risk from scour.

He was the Co-ordinator of the EC funded CADAM project which examined the risks of dam failure and dambreak modelling across Europe and has recently completed further projects establishing risk management procedures for dam safety in the UK and authoring a book on construction risk in river and estuary engineering. He is an active committee member of the British Dam Society (UKCOLD).

Paul Samuels trained as an engineer and mathematician and has 25 years of experience in the fields of river management and computational hydraulics. He has undertaken strategy and feasibility studies, detailed appraisals of flood defence works, and, critical reviews. He has international consultancy experience in flood hydrology, hydraulic modelling of rivers, and project feasibility level design. He has provided expert evidence in Parliament and Court including a case on dam failure. His research topics have included 1-D, 2-D and 3-D computational models of river hydrodynamics; benchmarking and calibration criteria for river models; the accuracy in practice of river models; dam failure; hydrological risk and climate change impacts.

He was the co-ordinator of the EC RIBAMOD Concerted Action, he has participated in CADAM and he is co-ordinator for EUROTAS, an EC research project on flood risk. He has supervised six PhD research projects to completion and has produced over 100 publications.

Mohamed Hassan has undertaken a range of fluvial hydraulics and engineering work since graduation in 1991. Project work has included structural design, construction supervision, water data management and in recent years a focus on dambreak analysis and simulation of breach formation.

Mohamed undertook an MSc in hydroinformatics through IHE Delft and HR Wallingford, and subsequently a PhD on breach modelling through HR Wallingford. Within the IMPACT project Mohamed will be responsible for undertaking physical and numerical modelling of breach formation and management of data for the validation and comparison of breach model performance.