Cerian: Hi there and welcome to the Natural Resources Wales podcast mini-series on Flood Risk Management. My name is Cerian Gingell and I work here at Natural Resources Wales. In this series you will hear from the different teams who work together to reduce the risk of flooding to communities in Wales. This will give you a really good overview of what flood risk is, what we are doing to manage it in Wales and what impact the climate emergency is having on flood risk in Wales both now and in the future.
Hello and welcome to episode 4 of the Natural Resources Wales Flood Risk Management mini-series! Today I’m joined by Dafydd Sidgwick who is going to talk to us about our Capital Programme. So this is the programme responsible for the construction and maintenance of our flood risk management assets. So, welcome Daf, and thanks so much for joining us and for taking the time to speak to me!
So to start off, I wonder if perhaps we could learn a little bit about you? So tell us about your background, perhaps your education or career path, but basically how you’ve ended up managing the Capital Programme?
Dafydd: Yes, no problem. I always enjoyed geography and Mathematics at school and studied Geography, Physics and Maths at A-Level. I was keen to go to university and study some form of physical geography, but my main concern at the time was to go to Cardiff University. Not too far, but far enough from home. I also looked at Aberystwyth and Liverpool, but Cardiff was definitely my preference.
So then I looked at what courses Cardiff offered rather than looking for a specific course and seeing which universities offered it. Cardiff still do Marine Geography, and that sits within the Earth Sciences department. I got the required grades and was offered a place. The first year was like a generic Earth Sciences course, then you move on to specialist courses in the second and third years, like Marine Geography, Exploration Geography, Geology things like that.
I didn’t actually enjoy my first year at all but stuck it out and then when I kicked into Marine Geography modules, I started to enjoy it more.
Cerian: That was a bit more up your street then
Daf: Yes, But then after finishing university, I did not see myself using my degree at all really and moving into that type of industry. I’d had enough of it. I wanted to do some cameraman work. However, I’d say after about two years of temp work and dabbling made me think again and start I started to think you know long term. So I saw jobs advertised with the Environment Agency. They were doing a lot of advertising, lots of jobs, like a big recruitment drive to an organisation that I’d heard of. I’m not sure how I’d heard of it. I just knew of it,
Cerian: Through the University maybe. In a careers fair or something?
Daf: No I don’t think so. I don’t remember going to a careers fair to be honest! I didn’t know anyone who worked for them or hadn’t spoken to anyone who did, but maybe it’s just the vans of something. I had heard of them anyway.
So I applied for a few jobs at various places and ended up with 2 job offers on the table. One was sort of in industry and one with the Environment Agency. The Industrial job was slightly more money, but I felt that there would be more job security working for a government organisation, better working conditions and maybe more job opportunities down the line and so safer.
The job I got was in the Water Quality Permitting department. I can’t say I was particularly drawn to the role or the work, it was more about getting my foot into the door in a big organisation and then sort of established myself, look to move on. This is what I did, and after 12 months, I applied for a job with the Hydrometry and Telemetry team. I really enjoyed that work a lot and did it for around six years, and then you know when you’ve done a job for that long you start assessing your options to progress and decided I needed to move teams in order to move up the ranks. So I moved over to the Flood Risk Management department and have been here for the last 7 years, managing the Capital Programme. In that time I relocated from Cardiff to North Wales. A major benefit for me was that I could continue in the same role even though I had moved. That probably doesn’t sound surprising now post pandemic, but in pre-covid times, that was quite unheard of and a big positive for me.
Cerian: And the flexibility’s always been there hasn’t it? Even like you say before the pandemic, so a lot of positive benefits.
Daf: Yes, You don’t get that in industry.
Cerian: No. So did you always have an interest in the environment, or in water management or was it something you fell into?
Daf: I’d always enjoyed geography. I think my degree moved it more towards marine although I didn’t opt for the course purely because it was marine, it was more the location.
But I didn’t study anything regarding flooding in school or at degree level. I studied geography from the age of 11 to 21 and didn’t do a single module on flooding. Throughout school it was all about the Amazon, hurricanes and volcanoes which is why I think a podcast like this is a good idea to help you learn about flood risk in Wales.
Cerian: Yes, that’s the plan!
Daf: I studied one or two modules at university which were relevant to my future jobs (GIS, hydrography and a limited amount on climate change or global warming as it was back then, but it wasn’t really relevant at all. So, looking back, learning about flooding and how it’s managed would have been much more relevant and interesting than learning about lava and tribes.
Cerian: Those things are interesting as well, but perhaps not so much when you’re linking it to working in flood risk management.
Daf: Yes but working for the Environment Agency, and now Natural Resources Wales has definitely got me more interested in the environment and water in particular. I think getting in to Hydrometry gave me a great understanding of how water is managed and monitored and underpins everything we do. And then moving into flood gave me more of a specific knowledge and how data is used in practice. You see both ends of the spectrum and how its collected and used. So I’m glad I’ve worked in different roles and different teams giving me a wider knowledge of the organisation and water management in general.
Cerian: Yes. It’s useful as well, because, as you say, when you move around you pick up different things. And it helps you see the bigger picture as well. But it’s interesting to hear all of that and how you got to where you are today. So I suppose the next question really is now that we’ve heard about you, is what is the Capital Programme? We know you manage it, but what is it? What does it do?
Daf: So people, like I did, tend to think, that money is just money. But in my line of work this isn’t the case. You’ve got Revenue and you’ve got Capital. Day to day versus one off funding. Or building a bridge vs maintaining a bridge.
Cerian: Okay, so the building of a bridge would be the one off and then maintaining the bridge is sort of an ongoing thing.
Daf: Yes. Revenue in its simplest form is the money used to fund the day-to-day activities that we undertake. So it would be cutting the grass and floodbanks and repairs to assets. So it’s ongoing work that doesn’t have an end date. Capital funding is for projects. So for one off costs to build or deliver something. The easiest way to explain it would be building a flood wall. Capital funding would be used to build the flood wall. So capital would build it and once it’s built, it would be maintained using revenue funding.
Cerian: Okay. So you’ve got sort of two different aspects within the overall programme.
Daf: Yes, So the capital programme obviously focuses on capital. Anyone who is managing a capital project that requires capital FRM funding will sit within the FRM Capital Programme. So it ranges from multimillion pound flood schemes, and purchasing new tractors and 4x4’s; to developing new software systems like the new Flood Warning System; or projects looking at the sources of flooding and how it can be managed; to small earthworks or tidal gates being replaced.
There are typically around 150 projects in the programme any given year, with an average spend of £17m but some years it has been more like £22m. It all depends on what projects we have lined up, how much resource, and that could mean time, people, and budgets we have to manage and deliver the projects.
Cerian: So why do we need a capital programme then? How do we decide where the money goes and which projects get the funding?
Daf: We need a capital programme to maintain the existing defences and software systems we have, but also to deliver new schemes, systems and purchase new equipment to help us do the day to day work. You know the revenue type of work. We need this equipment to protect and ultimately manage the risk posed by flood into people’s property.
So it’s all done on a risk-based approach. That’s important. So we have to prioritise the work we can undertake to budgets. So we take many things into consideration - risk there is to a specific community, recent flood events, opportunities to deliver wider benefits, technical, environmental, and social viability. You focus on the most at-risk communities.
Cerian: So it that the communities that have the highest risk of being sort of affected by flooding?
Daf: Yes. And also if it does flood, what is the risk.
Cerian: So it’s taking those most at risk groups then?
Daf: Yes, yes. Then you can split the work again by whether it’s reactive or proactive. So proactive work would be using our flood maps to help look to deliver schemes. You’re looking at your map, think okay, there’s a risk there, We build a scheme so that that never happens. Whereas the reactive stuff is work that takes place in response to a flood event. So that’s the sort of mix of stuff.
We’ve got defences all over the country as well as a flood warning system that gives people the opportunity to prepare themselves and their properties before a flood takes place. These systems and defences protect thousands of properties across the country every time there is heavy rainfall. However these instances don’t necessarily make good headlines. Rarely you know do they make the news. You don’t hear about them. The only time you hear about flooding is when properties have been affected and what needs to be done about it. Obviously that’s really important and we take it seriously. But I think it’s important to know how thousands of homes don’t flood when it rains heavily because they’re benefitting from either defences or a warning system.
Cerian: The sort of positive side of it I suppose. There are all those instances of things that have been put in place to protect people and they’ve worked. And as you say, that doesn’t necessarily get reported on. So I think it is probably good to point that one out. But is sounds like the capital programme covers a lot. But I suppose in a nutshell though all of these types of project are there to help protect communities from flooding in one way or another. So, is there always something that can be done? And if there’s not, well, what do we do then?
Daf: Well, society you know, we have to accept that we can really only manage flooding. Yes we can sometimes stop it to a limit or delay it, which would mean more time for people. But ultimately, there’s only so much that can be done especially when talking about flooding and big societal problems. We all need to be aware of the effects of climate change with the potential for more frequent and severe weather, and that will increase the risk of flooding.
We can’t always build, and we can’t build ourselves out of trouble. You’ve got to have a joined-up approach that features all the different elements and we do. But we have to think about things like reducing the number of homes being built on flood plains, for example, warning and informing people, making homes more resilient, catchment management and using natural measures, holding water back, coastal adaptation, and managed realignment. All those things are important. So what I always say is that concrete has its place, but so does, you know, advising planners, using green engineering materials, retreating from the coastline, things like that. It all has to play a part.
The reality is that though, unfortunately cannot protect everywhere. We have to implement a risk-based approach, and prioritise our work based on all of the evidence we’ve got available really.
Cerian: And I suppose that’s a key thing as well – it’s all evidence based, not thing plucked out of thin air. There’s lots of research, lots of evidence and things to back up those decisions. And I guess climate change is only going to make these things even more challenging isn’t it. So protecting communities in Wales from the risk of flooding is going to be more difficult in future?
Daf: Absolutely. And all that I’ve just summarised right there is going to be affected by climate change, the risk will continue to increase. And there are all sorts of projects within the Capital Programme that are driven by the risk of climate change.
So most of our new flood schemes, especially defences now have climate change projections built into them. For example, if we’re building the foundations will be built wider than necessary to enable us to build them higher in future if needed for example. Or the risk posed by climate change will be already factored into the height of a defence. It will be higher than is needed because we know in 50, 60 , 70 years’ time it will be needed, so we build it a bit higher.
But as I said earlier, you can’t build yourself out of trouble – that’s just one bit of it. So there are other projects in the programme looking at alternative ways to manage this risk. So Coastal Adaptation for example, where we are assessing if we need to retreat from the coastline or look at more nature-based solutions. There are also other projects that sit outside of the capital programme but could lead to future works. So one of these is our Long-Term Investment Requirements project and that looks at how climate change projections affect our asset base, so that’s the number of defences we’ev got, the cost of maintaining them, the cost of raising them if needed and where it is or is not economical to do so. All that type of stuff, with climate change in mind.
Cerian: Absolutely, so it’s complicated isn’t it, and it doesn’t really sound as if there is one magic answer which I think people hope there will be – but it doesn’t work that way unfortunately doesn’t it. So it is a complicated picture.
It’s been really good talking to you today. Thank you for giving up your time to talk to me. It’s been so interesting to hear all about the work that you do and the projects that are going on and how it all works to protect communities in Wales and offer more resilience against flooding. Before I let you go though, can you tell me about the most rewarding part of the job is? What do you enjoy the most?
Daf: I’ll try not to be too corny! But it’s the variety of the work, but the people I work with as well. I work with a host of different people from different teams across the business on different projects. There’s so many different thing in the programme I get to work with a range of people and there’s always something different around the corner, so it might be a new adaptive way to manage the risk of flooding or a new large-scale flood scheme for example, or a new computer systems that I’ve never heard of to help provide the evidence we need to make decisions. Yes just working with so many different people, on all sorts of projects. It’s ever dull and always learning.
Cerian: Good. Okay thank you, that was really interesting, so thank you again for giving your time to come and talk to us today.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, if you have any comments or questions, you can contact us by email – which you can find in the show notes. You’ll also find links to our flood risk management pages where you can view some of the things that we talked about here today.
Thanks for listening!
