Flood Expo keynote line-up has been released 

The Flood Expo is the world’s largest exhibition and conference designed to help the most progressive flood professionals and property owners discover the latest innovative products, services and strategies that transform the way flooding is predicted, prevented, and managed. It will take place on September 11 and 12 at the NEC, Birmingham (UK) and it will host some of the top leaders' companies within the industry.

Alongside returning favourites from 2018’s keynote speakers – Mary Dhonau, from Know Your Flood Risk, and Daniel Rosenberg from Gravitas – this year’s event features an impressive line-up speakers from across flood industry. Says a spokesperson: “From case studies, to addressing sustainable challenges in the flood industry, this is undoubtedly the strongest keynote speaker line-up The Flood Expo has ever seen and we hope you will agree.” The following speakers will be joining the event:

David Nash from the Z Zurich Foundation will share the work of Zurich’s Flood Resilience Alliance in building a system-based methodology, which goes beyond grey infrastructure solutions. He will show how this approach creates locally relevant actions, helping communities globally develop in a climate-smart and risk-informed way, and show how we can measure resilience as a result.

Fai Fung from The UK’s Met Office will speak about the future climate projections for the UK.  UKCP18 is designed to help inform the management of future risks from climate variability and change, providing updated probabilistic estimates of the ranges of future climate change and results from a new suite of global, European and UK-scale climate models.

from BAM Nuttall will examine sustainable challenges for collaborative delivery framework partners. As the UK’s Environment Agency (EA) moves to its new collaborative delivery arrangements, Neil Parker from BAM Nuttall will presentation will focus sustainable challenges for collaborative delivery framework partners, looking at how suppliers will  work in partnership with the EA and supply chain to implement sustainable solutions and meet increasing efficiency and carbon challenges.

Judith Kaspersma from Deltares will speak about Innovation in flood risk management in the Netherlands, providing an overview of current innovations in flood risk management in the Netherlands, as well as tools, approaches and methods.

Meanwhile, Sun Yan Evans from Mott MacDonald will talk about the ‘Enabling Resilient UK Energy Infrastructure: Natural Hazard Characterisation’ project, funded by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) and Tim Beech will speak about Thames Water’s innovative approach to managing surface water in partnership. Thames Water is working in one of the most densely populated and urbanised regions in the UK, placing a lot of pressure on drainage. He will outline its shifting emphasis towards reducing the volume of surface water entering its sewers with partnership in mind.

Piet Dircke of Arcadis will give an overview of global best practices in coastal resilience, discussing the most recent and innovative global developments on coastal flood resiliency and urban climate adaptation.

Alastair Moseley from the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) will explain the key elements of the new Code of Practice for Property Flood Resilience, how to access it and the huge benefits that it will bring to installers, insurance companies and millions of property owners alike throughout the UK.

Russell Turner from the Flood Forecasting Centre will explain the ten years of partnership between the Met Office and Environment agency, showing key flood events, learning points and improvements introduced to improve flood forecasts and provide the best information to continue to protect lives and livelihoods from the impacts of flooding.

Geordie Palmer from what3words (see CRJ R&D blog, 2015, here https://www.crisis-response.com/comment/blogpost.php?post=187) will speak about the challenges of location in emergency response. For those delivering emergency assistance, knowing exactly where they are going is crucial and this can be a challenge when address information isn’t available. What3words gives an address of three simple words every 3x3m in the world. allowing precise locations to be described very easily.

Prof. Dapeng Yu from The University of Loughborough will focus on surface water flood forecasting in a changing climate where the weather is becoming increasingly untypical and uncertain.

With her seminar yet to be announced, the organisers are also pleased to announce that Livia Hollins from United Nations Climate Change will also be speaking at the Keynote Theatre during the event.

Tickets for the event are still completely free and readily available from thefloodexpo.co.uk, so take a look at the keynote speakers so far and secure your tickets now for September 11 and 12, 2019.