1. business and industrial
2. energy
3. nuclear power

i s s u e
8 : 2 0 1 2
“Challenging economic times do
not mean that business has come
to a standstill. The opportunities
are still there to step up and
keep ahead of the crowd”
issue 8: 2012
plan design enable
Angles: the atkins magazine
angles
ofnote
From infrastructure in the desert to safety in nuclear
power, today’s engineers have responsibilities
that their predecessors could never have predicted.
How do you navigate this ever-changing landscape?
By building for today while planning for tomorrow.
16
The disaster in Fukushima
reminded the world that nuclear
power comes with significant
risks. What does this mean
for our future energy mix?
04
08
As the Middle East continues
to grow, fundamental services will
need to grow with it. This means
infrastructure is the big story, from
roads to water and power.
38
We all want to build a more
sustainable future, but questions
remain about how we’re going
to pay for it. A clear vision as well
as strong leadership will be
needed to make it a reality.
Flooding remains a threat
from Bangladesh to central
Europe, but new modelling and
mapping techniques are starting
to make a real difference.
30
24
The London 2012 Olympic
and Paralympic Games are on
their way and, for many of the
events, rigorous testing will have
played a big part in their success.
20
Building new railway lines
and subways is only part of the
urban puzzle. Transit-oriented
development is influencing
transport strategies worldwide.
We potentially have enough wind, wave and tidal
transform the country from a net energy importer
34
How do you turn wastewater
into a resource instead of a cost?
It requires more than new sewers
– it needs well managed water
systems across the board.
energy to...
to a net energy exporter
46
Before Dean Fox became
president and CEO of Atkins in
North America, he was a civil
engineer in the US Air Force. How
does this inform his current role?
All businesses have risks
to manage. But these days the
nature of those risks seems to be
changing. Does this mean we’re
taking fewer chances? Or are we
merely whetting our appetite?
42
welcome
Working for
the future
2
Focusing
on the
fundamentals
Challenging economic times do not mean that
business has come to a standstill. Quite the contrary:
numerous ground-breaking projects have still been
commissioned around the world in recent years, from
the cavernous railway stations beneath the crowded
streets of Hong Kong’s Western District to the bypass
bridge near the Hoover Dam – the longest concrete
arch bridge in the Western hemisphere.
All of this reflects a heightened focus on the
fundamentals. From London to Qatar to the Colorado
River, businesses and governments are looking for
answers to key questions: how do we address our
changing energy needs? How do we cope with the
impact of climate change and how will we pay for the
green future to which we all aspire? How can we
create a sustainable model for the Middle East? And
perhaps at the heart of it all: how do we balance the
risks that we’re facing today with our desire to keep
exploring new possibilities for tomorrow?
These questions mirror the basic issues that
continue to challenge us all, from the search for
a safe and secure energy supply to improving an
ageing or inefficient infrastructure. Leaders in all
sectors are looking for increasingly collaborative
ways to answer those questions. They are looking
for new opportunities and partnerships around the
world, ones that will help them to achieve their goals
with commitment and dedication, working together
to the highest possible standards.
Most of all, they’re looking for innovative thinking
in everything from energy to transport to health and
safety practices. From the buzz of the London 2012
Olympic and Paralympic Games to the heated
debates surrounding the creation of a European
“supergrid”, the opportunities are still there to stand
up and keep ahead of the crowd. It’s up to everyone
to plan for contingencies and be flexible, so they can
cope with anticipated success as well as any
unexpected developments.
For its part, Atkins will remain focused on the
values that have taken the organisation this far:
bringing out the best from its people; remaining
customer-driven in its ambition and integrated in its
activities; staying passionate about innovative thinking;
and delivering winning performance. Sticking to these
values will not only see the organisation through a
challenging period, but also maintain its upward
trajectory when better times return.
Everything that
Atkins does – from its
innovative thinking
in energy, transport
and sustainability to
its health and safety
practices – reflects
on both its employees
and its clients
power
struggle
Nuclear energy
Fission
statement
The Fukushima disaster gave the world’s nuclear
industry pause for thought, prompting the question:
should countries put their nuclear construction
programmes on hold until further notice?
And, if not, how can the industry ensure that it’s
delivering a safe, cost-effective and sustainable
nuclear infrastructure?
4
“The world has a combined need for a
low carbon, secure and affordable energy
supply right now,” says Chris Ball, director of
nuclear at Atkins in the UK. “Nuclear is the
only proven large-scale generator of lowcarbon electricity that meets these criteria. It is
a major part of a balanced energy mix, which
includes renewable and other technologies.”
After two decades out in the cold, the
international nuclear industry’s fortunes
have changed. There are 66 nuclear power
stations under construction around the
world and it’s estimated that 200 reactors
could be built over the next two decades.
As of March 2012, China had 26 reactors
under construction, 51 planned in before
2030 and a further 120 proposed. In Russia,
ten are under construction, with 41 planned
or proposed. And, while only one is currently
being built in the US, there are potentially
30 others in the pipeline. The World Nuclear
Association predicts that by 2015, one
1,000MW unit could be coming online,
somewhere around the world, every five days.
In the UK, the big shift back to nuclear
began in 2006 with a government white
paper authorising the construction of new
power stations. Since then, eight sites for
reactors have been confirmed. Two bidders –
EDF Energy and Horizon Nuclear Power (a
joint venture involving E.ON UK and RWE
npower) – tabled proposals for new plants,
although E.ON and RWE later changed
their plans, putting Horizon up for sale.
Responding to the news, UK energy minister
Charles Hendry argued that this development
gave new players “an excellent ready-made
opportunity to enter the market”.
Ultimately, there’s one major hurdle
that still needs to be overcome before that
nuclear future becomes a reality: fears over
the safety of nuclear that have re-emerged
as a result of the Fukushima disaster.
A safer nuclear future
In light of Fukushima, governments turned
to their experts to assess the events in Japan
and advise their domestic nuclear industries
on the lessons that could be learned. In
Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, this may
have bought an end to nuclear ambitions,
but in the UK, chief nuclear inspector and
head of UK Office for Nuclear Regulation,
Mike Weightman, gave the industry a
There are 66 nuclear
power stations
under construction
around the world
and it’s estimated
that 200 reactors
could be built
over the next
two decades
The average age of
an employee in the
UK’s nuclear industry
is worryingly high at
50, so recruiting and
training new talent
is essential
The World Nuclear
Association predicts that
1,000MW of new
nuclear capacity will be
coming online worldwide
every five days by
2015
positive report on its approach to safety.
He was satisfied that both sides – operators
and regulators – worked well together to
ensure standards were met. No significant
weaknesses were found in the UK’s nuclear
licensing regime and no gaps were discovered
in the scope or depth of the safety
assessment principles already in place. His
final report concludes: “We see no reason
for curtailing the operation of nuclear power
plants or other nuclear facilities in the UK.”
This was not a green light for nuclear
development, however. It simply confirmed
that the approach to nuclear safety taken in
the UK is fit for purpose. It also highlighted
the fact that safety must remain the first
priority for all stakeholders: “We expect the
industry to take the prime responsibility for
learning lessons, rather than relying on the
regulator to tell it what to do.”
Designs for a nuclear life
Continuing with the UK example, the
concern for safety reflected in the Weightman
report is not simply a reaction to Fukushima.
New reactor designs have been required to
undergo comprehensive safety checks under
the government’s generic design assessment
(GDA) process since 2007. If it does not pass
the GDA, a reactor design will not be
granted regulatory consent.
This is in line with the
long-term goals for safe
nuclear power
generation in the UK,
according to Kevin
Allars, director of
new nuclear build
with the Office for
Nuclear Regulation at
the HSE: “Our mission is
to secure protection of the
public and society from the
hazards of the nuclear industry. That’s what
we strive to do. We want reactors to meet
the highest standards of safety, security and
environmental protection. We must not stand
still but continually strive for reasonable and
practical improvements to make these
reactors and anything else the industry does
as safe as possible.”
The GDA is intended to strike a balance
between the need for safety and the needs of
investors. It represents a more collaborative
approach to regulation than has been the
case in the past and includes a strategy for
working with overseas regulators.
“Through the GDA, we assess new plants
at the design phase, which means we are in
a much better position to ensure that new
reactors are built to the high standards of
safety, security and, with my colleagues in
the Environment Agency, environmental
protection,” says Allars. “It’s much easier
to influence the design when it’s on paper
than when it’s actually being built. The GDA
process is unique to the UK. No other country
has undertaken this work in this way.”
Although that process can be lengthy, it
needs to be conducted only once for each
design. Energy companies can then duplicate
the approved design at different locations,
subject to a separate site licensing process
which will address site-specific variances to
the generic design.
In the UK two designs were shortlisted for
approval in 2011: the UK EPR (designed by
EDF Energy and Areva) and the AP1000
(designed by Westinghouse). Both are
Generation III+ reactors, based on proven
pressurised-water technology, offering
improved efficiency and safety, a higher level
of standardisation and a longer operational
life than previous designs. Overseas
implementations of both designs are at an
advanced stage and tentative approvals have
“There’s going to be a worldwide
demand for nuclear skills over
the next 20 years, so we need
a new generation of managers
and technologists”
research organisations and companies
to share training best practice overseas.
Atkins also provides comprehensive
nuclear training for both its existing
engineers and new graduates via the
Nuclear Training Academy, which is run
in collaboration with the University of
Central Lancashire.
Footing the nuclear bill
Atkins is working as part
of the Engage consortium
to deliver ITER (the International
Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor), an innovative fusion
reactor in southern France
been given in the UK, following supplemental
questioning in the GDA process.
“After the Fukushima disaster we asked
the designers of these new reactors to go back
and have a look at what they had already done
and see what effect Fukushima has had on the
safety cases they put forward in the different
technical areas,” says Allars. “That’s what they
have done and now we have a plan in place
from them explaining what they intend to do
in light of lessons learned from Fukushima.”
As a further boost to the nuclear industry
in the UK, the fact that there are only two
blueprints on the table could be of great
benefit. Contrast this with what happened
50 years ago, when the government went
with advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR)
technology. This was later abandoned, but
only after several power stations had been
built to different AGR designs. This made
them expensive to build and it continues to
make them costly to maintain in legacy.
“Standardisation is important,” says
Tony Roulstone, course director of the
Atkins-sponsored MPhil in nuclear energy
at the University of Cambridge. “The UK has
seven old AGRs and there are four different
types. If you build everything as a first of a
kind, you incur all the costs.”
As well as saving money, standardised
designs also allow for consistent safety
measures to be implemented across all sites
as well as cutting construction times – crucial
to the long-term viability of new builds,
given that the longer it takes, the higher the
interest charges will be for the project.
“Sticking to a standard design and
simplifying construction will help. In South
Korea, for example, they have been
consistently building about one reactor a
year for the past 15 years and taking costs
out at every step,” Roulstone says.
A question of skills
Such progress in tough economic times
is music to the ears of politicians and
economists, but it creates risks of its own.
The shortage of engineering expertise is
a concern shared across the world, both at
a corporate level and in terms of individual
engineering talent.
The bids being tabled for new nuclear
build reflect this concern. Instead of working
solo, most players are looking to collaborate
with others in the field. For example, Atkins
is working as part of the Engage consortium
to deliver an innovative experimental fusion
reactor in one of Europe’s biggest
engineering contracts of all time. In addition,
the company formed “n.triple.a” – the
Nuclear Atkins Assystem Alliance – with
leading French engineering firm Assystem,
to provide consultancy and engineering
services to the nuclear new-build market.
The average age of an employee in the
UK’s nuclear industry is worryingly high at
50. In the US, only six per cent of nuclear
workers are under the age of 32. So it’s
crucial to recruit and train new talent.
“There’s going to be a worldwide
demand for nuclear skills over the next
20 years, so we need a new generation
of managers and technologists,” says
Roulstone. “But nuclear power involves a lot of different technologies, so it’s not
something you can teach very well at
first-degree level.”
The industry is doing what it can to
support this effort to develop new talent.
Last year, the International Institute of
Nuclear Energy opened its doors in
France – the world’s most advanced
nuclear economy. Set up by the
government, it brings together the
country’s education establishments,
The skills gap is only one challenge facing
the nuclear industry. Financing the next
generation of nuclear plants and
shepherding their development will be
no small matter.
For the UK, the political landscape has
changed dramatically since Britain’s ambitious
nuclear programmes of the 1960s and
1970s. The electricity industry’s privatisation
in 1990 signalled the government’s
withdrawal from the energy arena as far as
capital projects were concerned.
The new set of nuclear power stations
will be financed entirely by the private sector.
But, to attract that private investment, the
government is reducing red tape and
legislative uncertainties. Measures include
changes to the planning regime, with fasttrack procedures for crucial projects such as
power stations. There’s also a new approach
to nuclear regulation.
All of this will fall under the aegis of
Infrastructure UK, the standalone government
body charged with co-ordinating the design,
planning and financing of the UK’s big
infrastructure developments over the next
five years. One of the new body’s first actions
was to give the green light to the Hinkley
Point nuclear reactor.
The industry across the world is
beginning to learn some hard lessons, but
the result should be a safer nuclear future
for us all. Clearly, fewer reactor designs,
closer collaboration and a willingness to
learn from the past should all pay dividends
in terms of standardisation, safety and cost,
making the process, from planning through
to decommissioning, that much more
straightforward. Taking a proactive stance
will support this process and set the
groundwork for a truly sustainable and
secure nuclear future.
The Fukushima effect
The aftershocks of last year’s catastrophic
earthquake have registered particularly
heavily on the nuclear industry around
the world. Across Europe, the effect has
been varied.
In Germany, the government
announced a three-month moratorium
on the nuclear plant life extension it had
passed in autumn 2010, and temporarily
shut down the country’s seven oldest
nuclear power stations. Public reaction
was visceral: 70 per cent of voters cited
nuclear as a major concern in regional
elections in March 2011. The future
for nuclear remains unclear, but, given
that Germany has 17 reactors providing
23 per cent of its power, the nuclear
question is arguably the biggest energy
challenge facing the country.
In France, the reaction was far less
vehement. The country has such a
long-established nuclear industry that
the Fukushima disaster was viewed by
French media and politicians as a purely
Japanese problem.
The Italians initially took the middle
road, announcing a year’s moratorium
on new plants coming online. However
a subsequent referendum was held
in June 2011, with a majority voting
against nuclear. That meant the
cancellation of all future nuclear power
plants. As it stands, that signals the
end of nuclear in Italy, given that the
referendum is legally binding.
In the US – the world’s biggest
generator of nuclear power – public
support remains robust. Although the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission has
recommended extensive safety upgrades
(which the industry is fighting on grounds
of cost), it sanctioned the construction
of the country’s first new nuclear plant
for 30 years in February this year.
7
going up
middle east
infrAstructure
For over a decade the Gulf region has been defined by headline
construction projects, from Dubai’s iconic Burj al Arab hotel to the 240mhigh twin-towered World Trade Centre in Manama. But there is another
side to the region’s vaulting ambitions and it lies a bit closer to the ground.
“Between the necessary and the magnificent”
Things are rarely done on a small scale
in the Persian Gulf. The region is home to
the world’s tallest building, the biggest
offshore oilfield and largest shopping
mall by total area, and the biggest singleevent sporting competition in the world
– the FIFA World Cup – is set to kick off
in Qatar in 2022. However, while its
achievements to date have been
remarkable – “development on
steroids”, as Professor Abdullah
Mohammed Al-Shamsi, vice chancellor
of the British University in Dubai (BUiD),
calls it – there is still work to be done.
For instance, until recently much of
the sewage produced in the gleaming
skyscrapers that make up the Dubai
skyline had to be removed by trucks
owing to a lack of waste infrastructure.
The trucks transported the sewage to a
wastewater treatment plant where
queues could stretch for 24 hours.
“We are still a long way from having
a proper infrastructure in the region,
despite the fact that some parts, such
as Dubai and Abu Dhabi, are very well
developed,” says Professor Al-Shamsi.
“Even within these two cities, the
infrastructure is some way behind
where it needs to be.”
The ability to move people around,
to cope with waste and to ensure that
goods can reach their destination on
time are all critical to ongoing
development and progress in the region.
But a disconnect has developed over the
past decade between headline-grabbing
construction projects such as the Burj
Khalifa – freshly arrived as a global icon,
courtesy of Tom Cruise abseiling down it
in the latest Mission: Impossible film –
and the development of the
infrastructure needed to support them.
That disconnect risks becoming even
more pronounced if it isn’t addressed.
According to Edmund O’Sullivan,
chairman of MEED Events and based in
Dubai, authorities in the region have
little option but to act, under the
circumstances. First, the population is
growing rapidly. The Gulf Co-operation
Council (GCC) – the union of the Arab
states bordering the Persian Gulf,
co-ordinating economic, financial,
trade, customs, tourism, legislation
and administrative agendas – is under
pressure to provide new facilities to
meet the growing demands.
Second, the pace of infrastructure
construction has lagged behind that of
the headline projects. Third, the Gulf’s
cities share a collective ambition to
become world-class in every sense.
Richard Barrett, chief executive
officer with Atkins in the Middle East,
agrees: “There’s expectation and
demand for higher living standards,
which means spending on social
infrastructure such as schools, hospitals
and housing. This in turn increases
demand for energy, water and waste
systems, creating huge challenges as well
“There’s expectation and demand
for higher living standards,
which means spending on social
infrastructure such as schools,
hospitals and housing”
as incredible opportunities for the built
environment sector. The driving force
behind this comes both from above,
at government level, and below, from
local populations.”
In response, authorities in the Gulf
have begun to shift their focus from
iconic buildings to people-friendly, relatively
low-rise infrastructure. This shift marks the
next phase in the development of the
region: improving local facilities as well as
the links that connect them.
Money where it matters
A walk on the F1 circuit
10
On Tuesday nights in Abu
Dhabi, about 1,000 people
can be seen walking and
cycling around its floodlit
F1 track in the relative
cool of the evening. This
is the night when the
track is closed to racing
cars and opened up for
citizens to take exercise in
a safe environment.
For Atkins
transport planner Roger
Cruickshank, this lowspeed stroll around a
300kmh circuit says a lot
about the people-friendly
future being planned for
the Gulf region. A resident
of the UAE, Cruickshank
heads up a team that has
developed a masterplan
for a proposed 500km
network of pedestrian and
cycle ways in Abu Dhabi.
It’s all about
connectivity, linking the
city’s places and spaces
through healthpromoting routes. The
authorities envision a
resource-efficient
metropolis with highquality facilities, especially
transport, as outlined in
Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 – a
comprehensive plan for
the future of the city.
The plan is intended to
develop a multi-layered
network to connect
downtown with the
outer suburbs and the
man-made, populated
islands in the Gulf.
“Connectivity
should be apparent in
a hierarchical system of
formal and informal open
spaces and biologically
significant protected
areas,” Cruickshank says.
But this is more than
just another wish-list for
more cycle paths. Looking
far beyond the actual
construction project, the
plan has three elements:
how to create the
infrastructure; how to win
people over to walking
and cycling (an issue of
hearts and minds); and
how to oil the decisionmaking processes that will
ensure that it all happens.
Obstacles are
numerous – not least of
which, it is illegal to cycle
on major roads in the
UAE. On the plus side,
Cruickshank points out
that Abu Dhabi boasts
Mediterranean-type
weather for six to seven
months of the year, highly
congenial for exercise.
“This isn’t just another
transportation study,”
Cruickshank emphasises.
“It’s also about lifestyle.
Engineers call it soft
intervention rather than
hard intervention.”
Of course, any such development will need
both financial and political support if it’s
going to succeed. According to O’Sullivan,
the investment side of the story is off to a
good start.
“There’s $2trn worth of infrastructure
projects either announced or already under
way,” he says, pointing out that Qatar
alone will spend more than $50bn on
infrastructure contracts in the next five
years as host of the FIFA World Cup and
may have to commit considerably more.
“We’re seeing a better balance between
the necessary and the magnificent.”
For example, there has been huge
investment in roads, rail, metros and
airports in recent years, according to
Barrett, adding that Atkins has a hand in
many of them. Among these are the $7.6bn
Dubai Metro, the longest automated system
in the world, and Qatar’s $500m Dukhan
Highway, while future projects include the
$40bn Doha Metro system and Saudi
Arabia’s 950km, $7bn land bridge.
Atkins was also recently awarded a
three-year, £70m-plus contract by the Qatar
Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning
to help establish a central planning office,
which will co-ordinate current and planned
road, rail, metro and other major transport
and infrastructure projects.
But this influx of investment is only part
of the bigger picture. The impact of the
financial crisis is still being felt in the UAE
and this has influenced people’s thinking
when it comes to financing major projects.
“There has been huge investment in roads,
rail, metros and airports in recent years....
Among these are the $7.6bn Dubai metro”
11
“During Dubai’s property boom,
developers couldn’t get projects off the
ground fast enough,” says Barrett. “Before
the bubble burst, they could build first and
worry about where the demand would come
from later.”
That’s all changed. The volatility in currency
and commodity markets, not to mention the
continuing saga of the eurozone economies,
means that ready cash is in short supply.
Large companies – the very organisations that
fuelled the construction boom – have reined
in many of their major investment strategies.
The number of buyers has dropped and
construction has slowed. The pressure is on the
Gulf states to fund their development plans
through sovereign wealth. As a consequence,
development in the Gulf has adopted a more
measured approach and investment options
are being scrutinised very carefully.
On the political side, Professor Al-Shamsi
points out that there are some big challenges
to overcome before infrastructure
development can make real progress. For
example, the UAE central government does
not have overall jurisdiction over the roads
connecting the emirates. Under the current
system of autonomous infrastructure
planning, once large federal roads are built,
control is handed over to one of seven
different local governments.
“As a result, you see varying quality,
different speed limits and signals and so on,”
says Professor Al-Shamsi, citing the main
highway that connects Dubai to the northern
emirates as one example. “Along that stretch
of road we’re demolishing bridges that are
less than a year old because they no longer
fit the wider road programme.
“A lot of things are changing owing to the
region’s unprecedented growth but the time
has come to build for the long term,” he adds.
“The authorities are getting better at this and
I hope they take inspiration from other federal
countries such as the US or Germany, which
organise these developments well.”
There are some signs of progress. On the
new road connecting Dubai with Abu Dhabi,
for example, speed limits, width and lane
markings are all consistent, which is a big
improvement on older roads that link
different Gulf states. Given the strategic
importance of the main transport link
between the region’s two pre-eminent cities,
the road serves a crucial purpose.
But the challenge for the emirates is to
co-ordinate infrastructure planning on a
much larger scale in order to make sure that
projects interact but don’t overlap. The GCC
states that it is “encouraging co-operation of
the private sector” and “fostering scientific
and technical progress in industry” but
Professor Al-Shamsi argues that “the federal
government needs to have a role in the
larger infrastructure development
programme if it wants the fundamentals
to be connected in an efficient way”.
According to HSBC’s chief economist
for the Gulf, Simon Williams, speaking
at the Economist Roadshow in Kuwait in
December 2011, regional integration should
be strengthened by mobilising capital, goods
and labour across borders. Other overdue
fixes, Williams adds, include a more
transparent business environment, which
would help to revitalise privatisation
programmes; improvements in the labour
market; and deeper markets for equities,
debt and foreign exchange. All of these
would boost the region’s ongoing
development programme.
The need for green in the desert
12
Much of the infrastructure expenditure in the
works today is based on one unavoidable
reality: the limited resources on which the
whole region depends – as illustrated in
“Green Economy In a Changing Arab World”,
the 2011 research report of the Arab Forum
for Environment and Development (AFED).
AFED is a Gulf-wide, not-for-profit, nongovernmental body that includes experts,
businesses and media, and promotes
“prudent environmental policies and
programmes across the Arab region”.
According to AFED, limited access to
fundamental resources, owing partly
to inadequate infrastructure, could have
serious consequences. For example, water
resources are becoming critical in most of
the 16 Arab countries covered by its
research. Underdeveloped or nonexistent
agricultural practices mean the net import
bill for fundamental food commodities is
predicted to hit $96bn by 2030. Traffic
congestion in urban centres remains a
concern and contributes to poor air quality
in many cities. Some 60 million people do
not have access to affordable energy
services. Environmental degradation as a
whole was estimated to cost an average
of $95bn a year or five per cent of the
16 nations’ combined GDP in 2010.
What’s more, as the report highlights,
“chaotic land-use patterns and excessive
urban sprawl” mean that infrastructure
systems simply cannot support their
populations: “Rural-to-urban migration and
high housing costs in many Arab cities have
contributed to the spread of slum areas,
characterised by inadequate – if not entirely
absent – basic services.”
And, while oil revenues mean that most
Arab states can continue to import what they
need for now, the lack of resources and
adequate infrastructure is forcing their hand.
There is growing recognition that broader
issues such as sustainability, energy
management and public transport must be
addressed – all of which are on the to-do list
of AFED’s “Green Economy” project,
which is set to invest $20bn in the region.
AFED argues that shifting to a green
economy will bring obvious and immediate
benefits to the region. Introducing more
sustainable agricultural practices could save
between five and six per cent of GDP in Arab
countries as a result of improvements to
water use, better public health and greater
protection of environmental resources.
Hotspots in the desert
Qatar, another state
where Atkins continues
to play a big role in its
construction, looks set
to be one of the busier
spots in the coming years
as it plays host to 2022
FIFA World Cup.
“Qatar has less than
a decade to deliver
everything that has to
be in place to welcome
millions of visitors,”
says Edmund O’Sullivan
of MEED Events.
“The successful
World Cup bid inevitably
strengthens what was
already a very positive
growth story,” says
HSBC’s Simon Williams.
“The investment projects
that had been talked
about before – in terms
of developing the
country’s infrastructure,
service sector, water
networks and airport –
all those projects now
have to get done.”
However, the state’s
long-term construction
challenges go beyond
just one sporting
event. “Qatar National
Vision 2030”, which
was published in 2008
and sanctioned by the
governing emir, outlines
extensive plans for its
modernisation over the
next two decades.
“Qatar’s 2030 vision
includes programmes
for health, science and
sport, all underpinned
by world class
infrastructure,” says
Atkins’ Richard Barrett.
“This is creating complex
technical and logistical
problems that require
deep expertise and
resources to resolve.”
“Qatar’s vision includes programmes
for education, health, science and
sport, all of which must be completed by the 2030 deadline”
Investments in renewable energy generation
and greater energy efficiency could produce
estimated savings of $73bn annually. This in
turn would allow for a reduction in energy
subsidies – cutting these by 25 per cent
would generate $100bn in savings in
three years.
“Raising the contribution of solar and
wind power in the energy mix is only one
part of the renewable drive,” explains Angus
Hindley, research director for MEED Events.
“Governments increasingly see the push for
new capacity as developing solar-related
manufacturing.” As a result most Arab
states have set themselves renewable energy
targets ranging from five per cent of total
power to over 40 per cent.
This all marks a change for the region,
says Dr Ayoub Kazim, managing director of
the educational free trade zone known as
Dubai Knowledge Village and one of the
main flag-bearers for the green economy.
“The issue of sustainability hasn’t
gained wide acceptance until now because
of the misconception that such initiatives
will cost a lot to implement,” he explains. In
fact, according to AFED research, the green
economy initiative could earn back its
$20bn investment by up to five times in
the long run.
There are already signs of this approach
bearing fruit: Abu Dhabi has made a start with
its plan to replace 600,000 streetlights with
new, low-energy light-emitting diode
fixtures in a move that may save up to
Dh500m in energy costs, it says. It’s a small
step, but solutions of this kind – which are
good for the environment and cost less – offer
a beacon of how innovation can deliver real
benefits, both economic and environmental.
Getting on the brain train
It is no secret that much
of the region’s rapid
development has been
achieved through talent
imported from around
the world, as well as the
involvement of global
organisations that bring
their own expertise.
“As an unintended
consequence, in the
UAE, a local engineer
isn’t just competing in
the local market for
a job. He is competing
with everyone else
from around the world,”
says BUiD’s Professor
Al-Shamsi. “The chances
are in the UAE that you
can find a qualified and
experienced international
candidate more quickly
and easily than a local
candidate. That prompts
people to study other
disciplines at university.
“The most popular
courses on offer at BUiD
are in business areas,” he
points out, reflecting on
the fact that the
economies of Dubai and
Abu Dhabi in particular
are still running at growth
rates of up to 20 per cent.
“Engineers feel they
want to pursue a business
path – even doctors are
the same,” says Professor
Al-Shamsi. “We are still
trying to find the right
people for our
engineering courses and
we’re hopeful that people
from the region will begin
to study here. At present,
a lot of local engineers
are choosing to look at
business or management
faculties instead.”
The professor believes
that this will need to be
addressed in the long run.
The focus on economic
development has meant
that few locals go into
the private sector. Indeed,
Professor Al-Shamsi
estimates that fewer than
one in 100 go down that
route, which means the
region is still importing
most of its required skills
for infrastructure
development from
outside, for the moment
at least.
It is possible that the
next phase of the Gulf’s
growth – moving from
boom town to an
established economic
bloc, underpinned by
sustainable development
plans – will see greater
interest from the next
generation of students.
13
pressure
point
Hoover Dam Bypass
the
bypass
story
How do you build the first concrete-steel
composite arch bridge in the US and the longest
concrete arch bridge in the Western hemisphere?
And how do you do so alongside one of the most
iconic tourist spots in the country? For the team
working on the Hoover Dam Bypass project, these
questions were front of mind for over a decade.
When the Hoover Dam was being built in the
early 1930s, no one had ever seen the like. From the
moment it opened in 1935, the concrete construction
on the Colorado River was an immediate draw for
tourists and they have continued to visit – nearly a
million people tour the dam every year.
For the narrow two-lane US Route 93 highway that
ran along the dam’s crest, this popularity wasn’t quite
so welcome: bottlenecks were common. It was the
main road between Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas,
Nevada, both of which had grown substantially since
the dam was built, which added to the pressure. As
recently as 2001, 18-wheelers were still winding down
into the Colorado River canyon through tight hairpins
and making their way past throngs of tourists. And,
while these large commercial vehicles were diverted as
a security measure after 9/11, traffic remained an issue
well into the first decade of the 21st century.
The solution was the Hoover Dam Bypass, with
Atkins providing construction management services on
the project. This corridor passes 1,600ft downstream
from the dam and includes the 2,000ft-long, four-lane
Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, also
known as the Colorado Bridge. The bypass was
intended to reduce travel times, minimise the dangers
involved in negotiating the treacherous hairpins and
mitigate against potential attacks or accidents on the
dam itself.
The concrete-arched bridge rises 900ft above the
Colorado River, crossing the canyon with a doubleribbed cast-in-place span. The individual arches,
which comprise 106 pieces, were built out from both
sides of the canyon, supported by cable stays tied to
temporary towers.
The project also involved the construction of
entirely new roadways across difficult terrain close
to the historic dam. This meant that, for example,
a series of nets had to be installed in order to catch
any rocks shaken loose by the blasting work for the
foundation excavation.
Since the bypass opened to the public in October
2010, travel time across the dam has been cut by up
to two hours during peak tourist seasons. Nearby
parking facilities mean that tourists can enjoy the
spectacle without disrupting traffic. And a walkway
along the north side of the bridge provides a perfect
view of the dam from a vantage point that, until
recently, required a helicopter to achieve.
15
damage
control
Flood mapping
and modelling
16
“A prerequisite for
effective and efficient
flood risk management
is the in-depth
knowledge of the
prevailing hazards
and risks throughout
a river basin and areas
of coastal flood risk.
This includes information
about the type of floods
(river, coastal, lake and
groundwater), the
probability of a particular
flood event, the flood
magnitude expressed
as flood extent, water
depth or flow velocity,
and finally, the probable
magnitude of damage
(life, property, economic
activity). Flood maps are
indispensable tools to
show information about
hazards, vulnerabilities
and risks in a particular
area. Only the clear
understanding of flood
risks permits the Member
States to decide on
type and scale of
appropriate action to
avoid, mitigate, transfer,
share, or accept the risks.
Flood risk mapping plays
a very important role in
this process.”
Source: Handbook on good practices
for flood mapping in Europe. Prepared
by EXCIMAP (a European exchange circle
on flood mapping), 2007.
Stemming the tide
Extreme weather systems are already causing
problems on a global scale, as the impact of
climate change begins to bite. Finding a way
to hold back the floodwaters and anticipate
the worst could offer a glimmer of hope
for vulnerable citizens around the world.
The evidence of the immediate
danger from flooding features
regularly on front pages around the
world: Australia, Thailand, Pakistan –
only a few of the major flooding
disasters that have hit populations,
crops and livestock in the past year.
In Bangladesh alone, floods kill
700 people a year, damage four
million homes and destroy over a
million hectares of crops. Major
flooding has also hit central Europe
on a regular basis over the past
decade, costing billions and
displacing thousands of people
from their homes.
As the world’s population
pushes past the seven billion mark,
the number of people living on
floodplains in many countries –
especially developing economies
with burgeoning populations – is
growing daily. In the long term,
peak flows in rivers are expected to
increase and sea levels are predicted
to rise by up to 60cm over the next
100 years.
Experts agree that we are
entering a “flooded future”.
But there is hope, particularly for
vulnerable communities. Flood
mapping and modelling are both
playing an increasingly important
role in pinpointing where the
biggest flood risks lie, says Mike
Woolgar, managing director of
environmental and water
management at Atkins in the UK.
“In simple terms, flood
mapping is about looking at
contours on a relief map and
working out how far the water’s
going to go,” he explains. “Flood
modelling gives an even clearer
appreciation of potential hazards
by taking variables such as
vegetation, soil saturation and
housing into account.”
In other words, mapping is
concerned with identifying the
immediate threats, while modelling
examines the dynamics of water
and how it fits within the wider
environment over the longer term.
“By modelling how you might
modify land management, barriers
or defences, you can come up with
something that is economically and
socially sensible,” says Woolgar.
“The need for water, for
environmental protection, for
agriculture and industry are all
linked, which makes decisionmaking complex,” he adds. “Using
hydrodynamic modelling, it’s possible
to look at how the river flexes over
time, so we can understand its
role as a useful resource as well
as addressing pertinent ‘what if?’
scenarios.” Clearly, there is no
“one size fits all” solution. Consider
the Nzoia River basin in Kenya: it
covers more than 12,000sq km and
supports a population of
three million. But its position
represents a big flood risk, which
has been exacerbated by heavy
deforestation over the past two
decades. And floods threaten not
only humans, but also the vital
livestock herds that provide both
sustenance and a source of income
to the local population.
It’s in vulnerable areas such as
this that modelling – taking a
preventative approach – can make
a real difference. To that end, Atkins
assessed flooding issues in the
downstream section of the Nzoia
catchment, evaluating existing levees
and management options, and
providing designs for the proposed
approach. Hydrological and hydraulic
modelling techniques were used to
identify the flood risks, influencing
the design options for possible flood
protection measures by highlighting
the environmental and economic
impacts of each.
17
“There are wider questions… You have to be sure
when you’re protecting yourself that you’re not
increasing the flood risk for someone else”
18
Atkins is also working with the World
Bank as part of a project to conduct an
integrated flood risk management plan for
the Shire Valley in Malawi. As the country’s
main source of water for food, crops,
industry, water supply and hydroelectric
power, the river is essential to the long term
sustainability of the region.
Atkins is investigating the resilience of
the existing infrastructure and institutional
framework, preparing recommendations to
strengthen flood risk management and
protect the local economy.
The front line
Whereas modelling offers a way of
modifying future development, mapping
is the true front line of flood defence.
Atkins is responsible for more than a
quarter of the UK’s statutory flood mapping
and this is used to support flood defence
work being done across the UK.
For example, Atkins worked with the
UK’s Environment Agency to improve
flood defences in the high-risk town of
Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, strengthening
and reusing existing defences where
possible. Piles made from recycled plastic
were used to strengthen the earth
embankments, as an alternative to
widening. The annual flood risk was
reduced for thousands of homes and the
sustainable solution saved more than a
thousand tonnes of carbon.
Modern mapping techniques are driving
changes in UK planning policy – construction
on floodplains has all but ceased. But this is
a moving target. Peak flows in rivers are
expected to rise by more than 20 per cent
over the next two decades, while the relative
sea level in south-east England could rise by
up to a metre by the end of the century. That
has implications for critical infrastructure such
as power stations, oil refineries and chemical
plants. These installations depend on their
proximity to rivers and coastal waters for
cooling and transport purposes.
In Northern Ireland, work has already
begun on tackling what is bound to be a
long-term flooding problem. Atkins worked
with the Northern Ireland Rivers Agency to
produce a flood mapping pilot study of two
catchments in Northern Ireland: Omagh
and Newtownards. The latter is crossed by
a number of small streams including many
culverts, which raised the risk of floods
owing to the inadequate capacity of the
culverts coupled with the influence of tides.
Atkins reviewed the stream and culvert
networks, simulating overland flow
flooding and providing vital information on
the depth, speed and duration of flooding
in a densely populated urban area.
“Risks have to be taken into account at
the design stage,” says Ian Heijne, director
of rivers and coastal with Atkins in the UK.
“The key is not only to do the mapping, but
also to understand what the mapping
means. At the level of an individual plant,
that means looking at where you locate
switchgear and major systems. But there are
wider questions, too. For instance, you have
to be sure when you’re protecting yourself
that you’re not increasing the flood risk for
someone else.”
Today’s map makers have a powerful array
of high-tech equipment at their disposal,
which is just as well, because precision is of
the essence, as Heijne explains.
“You need very detailed survey
information for flood mapping. It’s got to
be accurate to within 50mm,” he says. “If
it’s much more than 20mm out, it can be
dangerous because the threshold between
flooding and no flooding can be a matter
of millimetres.”
Part of the battle is being fought not on
the ground, but in space. Satellites that can
accurately monitor surface water conditions
over large areas are becoming central to
accurate flood mapping.
“We’re seeing more satellites dedicated
to hydrology, particularly flood mapping,”
explains Guy Schumann, research fellow in
hydrology at the University of Bristol in the
UK. “The reason for this is that the big space
agencies are responding to the scientific
community’s need for better information.
According to Schumann, satellites can
literally provide a clearer image of the
extent of surface water present in a given
area. The current generation of imaging
satellites provides near-military levels of
image resolution, which affords significant
research opportunities.
“The future lies in more satellite missions
to help gather flood variables on larger
scales and use them to build bigger models,”
Schumann says. “With increased
computational power, we hope to run these
models in forecast mode in the near future.”
Developing story
Merely being aware of a flood risk isn’t
the end of the story. Devising solutions to
meet the development challenges faced
by flood-prone areas is the next step.
In the US, for example, the federal
government underwrites flood risk, which
means accurate flood mapping is an
essential, albeit sometimes costly and
Flood prevention, protection
and mitigation in the EU
complex exercise. But progress has been
made to enhance the speed and accuracy of
the process while pushing down the cost of
producing maps. Part of that initiative has
involved government agencies working with
Atkins (among others) to draw up digital
flood insurance rate maps (DFirms) for
individual states on behalf of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
These DFirms highlight site-specific
hazards and play an important part in
ensuring that any development on floodprone sites is better managed and controlled.
And then there is the issue of flood risks
being increased by new urban development
projects. Layers of concrete and lack of proper
drainage in areas already at risk of flooding
only compound the problem. The costs to
everyday life can be high, given that largescale drainage construction can paralyse
a city district for a considerable time.
To tackle this, engineering best practice
in US cities is shifting towards green
infrastructure (GI) for stormwater
management, also known as Low Impact
Development (LID) or, in the UK, Sustainable
Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS).
Dan Medina, senior group manager
with Atkins in North America, notes that
underpinning GI is the concept of designing
spatially distributed stormwater controls
that mimic the natural hydrologic cycle and
allow rainwater to soak into the ground or
evaporate naturally. This approach cuts
the risk of flooding by reducing the volume
of water that becomes surface runoff,
thereby lessening pressure on drainage
networks. GI also restores beneficial aquatic
ecosystem functions by recharging aquifers
that supply base flow to streams.
“The challenge is to convince US
stormwater management authorities and
developers of the efficacy and costeffectiveness of such an approach,
compared with the traditional centralised
detain-and-release systems,” says Medina.
Medina is leading a study for the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to
examine how much money could be saved
if legislation for LID were to be brought into
force across the US.
“The EPA project involves an assessment
of a sample of large watersheds around the
country to calculate the flood loss-avoidance
benefits introduced by green infrastructure,”
says Stephen Bourne, a senior project manager
with Atkins in North America, and senior
analyst on the project. “We can then use
statistical techniques to extrapolate that out to
the entire country.”
Clearly, as long as humans live near or on
flood plains, there will always be a risk. But
the combination of front-line prevention,
more integrated development and a better
understanding of the long term issues
involved can only help.
In August 2002,
information and publishing
flooding killed
the Handbook on good
dozens of people,
practices for flood mapping
displaced thousands
in Europe in 2007 as a
and caused damage
supplement to the guide.
that cost billions of
euros across the Czech
“Survey
information
for flood
mapping
has to be
accurate
to within
50mm”
Since then, the EU has
established the European
Republic, Austria, Germany,
Flood Directive (EFD) on the
Slovakia, Poland, Hungary,
assessment and management
Romania and Croatia. This
of flood risks, which aims to
“100-year flood” – so called
“reduce the adverse
because it is unlikely to be
consequences on human
equalled or exceeded again
health, the environment,
in 100 years – was caused by
cultural heritage and
continuous heavy rain that
economic activity associated
went on for over a week.
with floods in the
The devastation and cost,
community”. EFD requires
both human and financial,
member states to produce
prompted water directors
a preliminary flood risk
from the EU, Norway,
assessment, followed by
Switzerland and EU
flood mapping comprising
candidate countries to
flood hazard maps and flood
publish everything they
risk maps by 2013 and then
knew about flooding, in the
flood risk management plans
Guide of best practices on
by 2015. You can download
flood prevention, protection
a copy of Handbook on good
and mitigation.
practices for flood mapping
In addition, they formed
EXCIMAP, a knowledge
in Europe here: http://ec.
europa.eu/environment/
exchange network on flood
water/flood_risk/flood_atlas/
mapping, compiling
index.htm
19
go with
the flow
Developing commercial and residential space around public transport
hubs offers a real opportunity to spread risk and gain income from
property investments, while helping to build sustainable communities
in areas that would most benefit. But it’s no silver bullet and there are still
some big challenges to be overcome if it’s going to take off worldwide.
Transit Oriented
development
Ringing the
interchanges
“What do communities living near transport
hubs really need?” asks Abigail Thorne-Lyman,
director of the US-based Center for TransitOriented Development (CTOD). This is the
question at the heart of the work that she and
her colleagues across the country have been
doing since CTOD opened back in 2004.
CTOD is a non-profit partnership of three
organisations in the US: Reconnecting America,
the Center for Neighbourhood Technology and
Strategic Economics, a real estate and
development consulting firm. The organisation’s
focus is on transit-oriented development (TOD) –
mixed-use residential and commercial areas built
around transport hubs, such as railways, bus or
subway stations, where car use is minimised and
pedestrian facilities are emphasised.
In 2004 CTOD published Hidden in Plain
Sight, a report highlighting the growing demand
for housing in transit-rich communities.
“We wanted to let developers know why they
needed to focus on this particular area when
considering new housing projects,” says ThorneLyman. “We wanted them to see that you can do
something different when you build new transit.
It’s not always about what developers want to
do. It’s about creating a community in an area
near transit and developing the area in order to
encourage people to build that community.”
Cities such as Amsterdam, Hong Kong and
Munich have already demonstrated the
effectiveness of this approach. They are known
for their large, central railway stations and for the
socio-economic benefits that flow from these,
including a good traffic-transit balance, thriving
city centres and a certain quality of life.
According to Jason Hutchings, responsible
for architecture and urban design at Atkins in
Hong Kong, the great value of TOD is that it offers
attractive development opportunities while being
inherently sustainable. It also provides an effective
way for transport operators to fund infrastructure
projects, thereby reducing the burden on taxpayers.
Hong Kong itself is widely seen as a leading
TOD model. Since the mid-1990s the city’s masstransit authority, the MTR Corporation, has
invested in several stations, introducing shops,
offices, hotels and leisure amenities on and
around these. In the process it has been able to
supplement its income, benefiting passengers
through better facilities and services, while
promoting a sustainable approach.
“The government allowed the MTR
Corporation to develop commercially on top of its
stations, which means that it not only runs the
trains, but it’s also the landlord and, in some cases,
the owner of shops, restaurants and residential
blocks,” Hutchings says. “It receives money from
the property development as well as from
operating the trains. An increase in the first activity
drives an increase in the second and vice versa.”
The MTR Corporation is now making
significantly more profit from its property
interests (£290m in 2009) than it is from fares
(£171m). Such has the been the quality of its
schemes, the company’s retail operation,
21
22
MTR-Malls, is successfully managing largescale retail development located further afield
from its stations.
Hutchings points out that, as well as
providing benefits to transport operators and
their passengers, a TOD can give an economic
boost to the surrounding area.
“There are collateral benefits of having one in
an urban context. It generally uplifts the area and
therefore increases property values,” he says.
This position is reiterated by property
consultancy Knight Frank, which provides
commercial and development advice on TODs
in Hong Kong and China. Knight Frank and
Atkins’ Architects know that integrated transport
elements and real estate developments produce
the best possible return on investment.
“In land-scarce, high-value cities such as Hong
Kong, TODs allow for greater densification and
therefore better use of land resources,” says Paul
Hart, executive director of Knight Frank Greater
China. He adds that the provision of an integrated
rail transport solution within a comprehensive
development results in significant increases in
value. This not only helps to fund the investment
in infrastructure but also provides local authorities
with an enhanced tax base, as property values in
the vicinity will also benefit.
Hart points out that TOD presents opportunities
for rail operators to make the most of their nonfare revenues by taking advantage of retail and
advertising opportunities within stations. “Nonfare revenue is becoming more important and
we are seeing more customer-focused retail
being provided in station.”
Professor Chris Hale, a Melbourne-based
TOD expert, adds that TODs enable transport
operators to plan more easily for the longer
term, too. “Mass transit is costly to refurbish and
extend. Transit operators need to know how
their passenger numbers will increase and how
growth is going to occur. Good TOD planning
provides some certainty,” he says. “The transport
operator wants certainty that it’s not building a
white elephant. If development is associated
with a transport hub, and the government is
behind that hub, there is increased certainty for
developers as well.”
While Hutchings and Hale are steadfast TOD
enthusiasts, they’re well aware of the challenges
involved in realising such schemes. One problem is
that pedestrian traffic through TODs tends to be
tidal, sweeping in and out during the rush hours.
To counteract that, Hutchings says it’s important to
integrate different types of commercial business
and attractions to fill in for off-peak hours.
On the other hand, TODs can help to solve a
common problem with shopping malls: that visitors
tend to resist using escalators, stairs and lifts. The
normal approach by developers is to put something
like a food court on a higher floor in the hope of
enticing shoppers there, but that’s not always
successful. Stations with underground platforms
naturally bring people upwards, though.
“The vertical movement of people is vital to the
success of these projects,” Hutchings says. “What’s
really good about combining a commercial
property development with a metro system is that
trains are normally two or three levels down, so
people already have to come up through the
building from the basement. Integrating this with
elevated pedestrian connections and podium
facilities encourages vertical movement and
activation of multiple retail levels.”
Lake developers
Hong Kong’s TOD success has not been lost on
planners in mainland China. Meixi Lake is a new
development being built outside the southern city
of Changsha. The satellite “eco-city”, which will
eventually be home to more than 200,000 people,
will be based on four metro stations, each with a
distinctive identity. The first incorporates a cultural
centre and opera house; the second, a high-end
residential area built around man-made lake; the
third, a mixed-use “icon tower”; and the fourth,
a business and financial district.
Ed McMahon, from Atkins’ Shanghai office,
oversaw the masterplanning and economic
positioning of the project. He says the idea was to
build high-density core areas around the four
stations, each with minimal carbon impact.
“The Hong Kong team brought a planning
strategy to develop these nodes. The metro stops
were positioned around 500m pedestrian
catchments. Once we had those in place, we
allowed the space in between to be market-driven.”
McMahon says that Atkins encouraged the
“ Transit operators need to know how their passenger numbers
will increase and growth is going to occur. Good TOD planning
provides some certainty. The transport operator wants
certainty that it’s not building a white elephant”
developer, Franshion Properties, to create a full
“live, work, play” environment in order to make
the most of its economic development potential.
“The whole project was originally going to be
only a financial district,” he says. “But we convinced
the developer that it needed good pedestrian
connections and that TODs could become valuable
catchments for retail investment. In this case, TOD
has been a great development tool to create an
office market and these high-density zones.”
Atkins created a transport plan and a lowcarbon index that measures the emissions of each
plot on the site. It is also promoting trackless
electric vehicles that would ferry people around the
development after they arrive at each of the transit
nodes, and there are plans for integrated bike and
bus networks. McMahon says that the Meixi Lake
masterplan will emerge in phases over the next
15 years, with the lake and river infrastructure
already built, as well as some main arterial roads
and power centres.
Different strokes
As TODs have sprung up around the world, they
have inevitably taken on different characteristics.
Not every transport operator will want, or be able,
to take the TOD concept as far as the MTR
Corporation has done in Hong Kong, for example.
Nor will many developers have the scope to create
a city from scratch.
In most cases the TODs will be more modest
affairs, perhaps incorporating a few retail and
food outlets and a pedestrian area outside. But
the starting point of any TOD project can have a
big influence on its outcome, as CTOD’s ThorneLyman points out. If developers are given free rein,
there’s a risk that people at the lower end of the
income scale could be pushed out and that
doesn’t benefit anyone in the long run.
A lot of CTOD’s recent research in the US,
for example, has focused on mixed-income TOD
and the preservation of housing. “We call it
‘revitalisation without displacement’, where you’re
able to capture those revitalising aspects without
sacrificing residential opportunities for lowerincome households or displacing people,” she says.
Much of CTOD’s work has focused on
communities that are adding fixed-guideway
transit lines for the first time – eg, heavy,
commuter and light rail, monorail, trolleycars,
aerial trams and cable cars – and trying to
decipher the potential effects of that investment.
“For many regions, this is an unprecedented
investment and we’re trying to help them
anticipate its impact on communities and to
determine how to get the most out of TOD’s
revitalising aspects,” says Thorne-Lyman. “And
there can be quite a bit of resistance to the idea:
there is no sense of how TOD might change a
lower-income community, for example. There is a
fear that low-income residents will have to move
somewhere further away if property values rise
quickly owing to the introduction of a TOD.
“TOD is a complicated build. Mixed-use
development is hard enough because you’re
pulling from several different lending streams,
including retail and offices and residential, but then
you add mixed use and all the extra infrastructure
and it’s even more complicated. Often the first
developer in the door risks not making any money.
As such, TOD isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for
developers looking for a quick win.”
Hale, who has a doctorate in TOD-related
economics and planning, says that while the US is
still at a relatively early stage in its adoption of
TODs, East Asia and Europe are most advanced.
“In Asia there seems to be an intuitive
understanding of both the value and the scarcity of
land close to transit infrastructure,” he says. “The
result has been a substantial and dense clustering
of residential, commercial and retail activities and
development around high-performance rail
systems. Asian cities are quite simply the most
transit-oriented of all city types.”
He contrasts the ability of East Asian authorities
and developers “to get things done” with that of
their US counterparts, where even relatively small
TOD projects have been stymied by years of
planning disputes. Australia, by comparison, has
“rhetorically adopted” TODs, but not always
followed through. “The big four cities have all
adopted big transit-oriented regional plans. But
Sydney is doing it: 70 per cent of new housing
there is built in these types of locations,” he says.
Certainly, TOD is not for the faint-hearted. Hale
describes such projects as “more technically
challenging than a lot of developments”.
Integrating two different building types can set off
statutory and zoning complications. And usually
there are many interested parties. “It is quite an
intensive form of development in a built-up area,
so there needs to be lots of co-ordination with local
stakeholders,” he adds.
Still, Hutchings says the challenges are all
surmountable and that the benefits, all told, easily
outweigh the effort required. “TODs present
planning, statutory and infrastructural issues that
need addressing, but that’s why transport operators
and developers need consultants such as Atkins,” he
says. “In truth, I haven’t come across any negative
impacts from designing and delivering TODs.”
23
Buying into
a green future
How do you make the case for investing in a more sustainable future, from
greener building methods to renewable power generation? Return on investment is
likely to be slow and early investors are taking the greatest risks as they enter new
and uncharted territory. Clear-sighted support from policy-makers and longterm vision from the construction industry itself could make all the difference.
For all the moral arguments, the issue influencing much of
the environmental agenda for the past few years has been the
cost. Green businesses may be booming for some early adopters,
but the path to a fully sustainable future remains uncertain.
As a result, governments worldwide remain under pressure
to show their political and financial commitment to a long-term
sustainability strategy. Without this support, green businesses
face an uphill battle, with no guarantee that their efforts alone
will produce a truly green future. The clean energy sector in the
US is a case in point: according to a 2011 report by research firm
Bloomberg New Energy Finance entitled “The return – and
returns – of tax equity for US renewable projects”, tax credits for
the sector have lapsed three times since 1999, which in turn has
reduced the number of new wind installations. The Obama
green
finance
“fugia solupta conse nihitatussustainble
dolum
future
comnis
administration’s stimulus package, the American
Recovery andre reprem faccatesti totas
Reinvestment Act of 2009, introduced
a cash grant programme
doluptas
inctibusam Ebist, qui odignimus
that helped to prevent another decline, but that ended in 2011.
apit es plaboria simus repelen duntota”
What can the government do to help support the ongoing
development of this fledgling and financially sensitive sector
without simply throwing more money at the situation?
“You have to provide a benefit in order for entrepreneurs to
want to invest in sustainability, or at least remove the disincentives,”
argues Benton Rudolph, director of architecture for Atkins in North
America and member of the American Institute of Architects.
While he agrees that governments need to provide support
in order for any sustainability strategy to succeed, Rudolph
argues there is still no consensus on the best way to provide that
support. According to the Bloomberg report, tax-based financing
“Henry Ford didn’t anticipate the affordable access to transport
predict the car’s impact on urban
increasing amounts of fossil fuels
26
structures, among others, will need to be
investigated in order to avoid a serious
decline in new clean energy installations over
the next 18 months. In addition, new
investors will need to be attracted, which
means that the clean energy sector itself will
need to step up commercially.
The challenge is finding the right
financial incentives to attract the right
investors and putting the right deal in place.
Rudolph points out that this kind of focused
approach, even at a local level, can have a
big impact. He cites various incentives that
have been introduced for buildings certified
under the Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) scheme, the
US equivalent of the UK’s Building Research
Establishment’s Environmental Assessment
Method (BREEAM).
LEED provides standardised rating
systems for the design, construction and
running of green buildings and has been
applied to more than 7,000 projects since
its launch in 1998. A number of federal
government agencies require LEED
certification as part of any building
development plans, while various states
have introduced tax breaks for properties
that have been certified.
By giving developers and other
stakeholders a financial incentive to get
involved in this way, the government can
help to set the stage for ongoing
investment in sustainability. More
importantly, it can encourage new and
innovative approaches to financing a
sustainable future.
Look at that ESCO go
Sean Lockie, head of sustainability at Atkins
company Faithful+Gould and based in the
UK, points to energy service companies
(ESCOs) as one example of this creative
approach to financing – one that doesn’t
have to rely on government funding in
order to succeed.
ESCOs have been up and running in the
US since the 1970s and can help to offset the
costs involved in making buildings greener
without requiring any money up front. ESCOs
audit a company’s energy use and determine
what possible cost-saving measures the client
can make, then conduct all of the necessary
work to complete the project. Payment
comes out of the accrued savings, requiring
little or no outlay on the part of the client.
“Some companies don’t want to put
the money up front, especially at this point
in the economic cycle, because it’s a complex
business case. But ESCOs take the risk and
are set up to do the work,” Lockie explains.
“It takes the capital cost issue off the table.”
The US government has already
confirmed its belief in the value of the
ESCOs approach – a portion of the $41bn
Recovery Act went to encouraging these
businesses in their efforts. The legislation
also paved the way for many federal
buildings to be retrofitted, representing a
small but influential part of the nation’s
commercial real estate.
And the success of the ESCO model is
not limited to the US: a recent audit of a
25-storey office block in London conducted
by Lockie and his team identified £500,000
worth of annual savings, for example.
Heating and lighting were left on 24/7, even
though the building was primarily being
used from 7.30am to 7.30pm on weekdays;
and both its boilers and air conditioning
systems were always on at full blast,
“fighting each other for the same space”.
Lockie says that significant savings
on energy costs can be achieved relatively
easily in most buildings: “There is a
phenomenal amount of waste in a lot
of buildings. You can take 20 per cent off
the energy costs by doing simple things
such as switching off the lights,” he says.
Changing the way businesses use
energy, as well as retrofitting existing stock
and applying new, more sustainable
construction standards are some of the
least painful measures for cutting the
significant carbon emissions released by
the construction industry each year.
Management consulting and research
firm McKinsey & Co has estimated that
concerted action could cut emissions from
buildings by half, compared with a businessas-usual scenario, equating to five billion
tons of CO2. Furthermore, McKinsey says
that, per the ESCO model, the cost of
making these changes could be more than
offset by the savings.
ESCOs have been somewhat slower to
take off in the EU than in the US, according
to “Energy service companies market in
Europe” a 2010 research report for the
European Commission, but the numbers are
still encouraging. In 2007-10 Denmark,
Sweden and Romania all saw significant
numbers of companies taking up such
services, while Germany, Italy and France
have also been home to ESCO providers.
But growth elsewhere in the EU has been
stunted by the financial crisis and the
economic slowdown, according to the study.
Time and tide
Of course, any long term sustainability
strategy worth its salt will focus on more
than just the bottom line and rely less and
less on government financing. In fact, the
emphasis on cost is part of the problem,
the impact of the car much beyond
that it offered to the less well-off. He couldn’t
planning, air pollution, the need to burn everand so on”
according to Mike Woolgar, managing
director of environmental and water
management at Atkins in the UK.
Speaking to delegates at the Critical
National Infrastructure conference in June
2011, Woolgar asked: “Are we in a situation
where we have focused too tightly on costeffectiveness without understanding the
resilience that we need? If you have a good
systems approach in what you are doing and
are not bound by sector, you can think
about the things that could go wrong, draw
those into your investment processes and
look at how to improve your assets to adapt
to changing circumstances.”
This need for “a good systems approach”
is a familiar theme among leading engineers.
Paul Jowitt, a professor at Heriot-Watt
University’s School of the Built Environment
in Edinburgh and former president of the
UK’s Institution of Civil Engineers, has
argued for years for decision-makers to take
a more holistic attitude to key national
investments. In the past, he says, few people
worried about the wider effects of major
decisions. “Henry Ford didn’t anticipate the
impact of the car much beyond the
affordable access to transport that it offered
to the less well-off. He couldn’t predict the
car’s impact on urban planning, air pollution,
the need to burn ever-increasing amounts of
fossil fuels and so on,” he says.
Jowitt believes that many organisations
and individual stakeholders still see the
world in a similarly limited way. Academics
focus on their specialisms, while students
are rewarded for taking modular courses,
rather than integrated ones that
encourage broader thinking. The world’s
environmental challenges require a more
connected approach.
“As soon as sustainability was recognised
as an issue, it became clear that systems were
the key to dealing with it,” he says. “Today
governments will say ‘we need to take a
systems view’ or refer to a ‘holistic view’.
Ten years ago they weren’t saying that.”
Jowitt argues that the engineering
profession should fight its corner where
sustainability is concerned. “I’m not saying
that we should be a political party. But the
idea that we should blindly let politicians tell
us what to do might not be the right thing,
either,” he says.
Taking a systems approach could have
some radical consequences, especially for
those who remain fixated on that bottom
line. For example, this approach might
suggest that the life-cycle costs of
different products and activities involved in
any project be taken into account –
something that often doesn’t happen,
according to environmentalists.
Cecilia Green, environmental science and
planning manager for Atkins in North
America, believes that such full-cost
accounting may be the best way to keep
investors interested without money being
forever centre-stage. Instead of sitting in the
spotlight, the financial strategy for
sustainability would become part of a larger
systems approach.
“Look at renewables: they have become
more reasonably priced, but natural gas and
nuclear are more competitive forms of
generation,” she says. This situation may
change, but at the moment a lot of the
decisions “will still come down to the price”.
By framing those decisions within the wider
long term context, the sustainable future has
a better chance of becoming a reality.
Despite the challenges that lie ahead,
there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic,
adds Rudolph, especially about the built
environment. He praises the US government’s
efforts to encourage federal buildings to be
LEED-certified and he says that, even though
the wider shift to more sustainable building
standards is happening slowly, it is happening.
“It’s progressing every day. On the first
LEED-certified building we worked on
several years ago, it was difficult to find any
certified products. Now you can go
anywhere and find 20 different solutions for
renewable flooring, for example,” Rudolph
says. “These new products will continue to
be developed as long as there is a demand.
If every new building required a new level
of efficiency, innovation would fill that void.
It would keep advancing.”
27
tunnel
thinking
Hong Kong
Over 90 per cent of Hong Kong’s Western District
residents have to rely on buses and trams, owing
to the limited extent of the existing rail network.
A new rapid transit rail line is due to extend that
network into the district by 2014, taking pressure
off a system that is already feeling the strain.
Dig this: Hong Kong’s
West Island Line
For Hong Kong’s densely populated and builtup Western District, a new rapid transit system will
offer some much-needed respite from the
difficulties involved in getting from A to B. Atkins is
working closely with railway network operator MTR
Corporation to complete Hong Kong’s West Island
Line, an extension of the Island Line that runs from
Sheung Wan in the Central and Western District to
Chai Wan in the Eastern District.
The tunnels will pass beneath one of the most
congested vertical urban centres in the world and
underground stations will be created to minimise
the line’s footprint in this already tightly packed
environment. It demands ongoing assessments of
the potential impact of the work on everything
from water supply to the stability of buildings that
sit above the tunnels. And there is the question of
what to do with the debris as digging progresses.
Starting from scratch
Plans for the extension cover 3km of underground
line and new stations at Sai Ying Pun and Hong
Kong University (HKU) – both cavern stations – as
well as Kennedy Town. Atkins’ tunnel designs take
them through low-lying soft ground materials and
rock, from the coastline and up the hillside, with
overlying structures and extensive populated areas
along their length. All three stations must connect
with the existing station at Sheung Wan, the
current Island Line terminus.
The location is so built-up that several
government facilities had to be relocated to provide
worksites for the project as well as providing
access to the underground shafts. A temporary
underground explosives storage space had to be
established for the blasting materials, because it
wasn’t safe for them to be transported along
crowded public roads regularly. And, in order to
minimise disruption to the local community, 90 per
cent of tunnel debris has to be removed via a
covered conveyor system to a barging facility.
Creating the perfect cavern
The HKU and Sai Ying Pun cavern stations
themselves – the first such stations built in Hong
Kong since 1983 – presented particular
engineering challenges, not merely because they
are the largest of their kind on Hong Kong island.
Rock cover above Sai Ying Pun shrinks to only
10m at one point, which means the large-span
cavern designs at HKU had to be replaced with
two narrow “finger platform” tunnels.
Access was another issue for this project – and
not only from the surface. The buildings sit above
a maze of utilities, which restricts tunnelling
activities such as borehole drilling. Pilot tunnels
had to be considered before any excavation.
Water pressure and other hydro-geological
concerns also formed a key consideration in the
cavern designs. Their long-term impact could be
felt in everything from groundwater control to
surface settlement and, as such, detailed
assessments were needed from the start. For
example, the land above Sai Ying Pun station
includes more than 30 older buildings, the
foundations of which could be influenced by the
cavern construction as well as longer-term effects.
When it opens, it is hoped that the West Island
Line will improve day-to-day life in one of the world’s
most hectic and crowded urban environments.
near the
finish line
London 2012
London 2012: testing,
one,two,three…
30
In May 2011, a yearlong programme of
events was launched
that was designed to
test the infrastructure,
buildings and operations
behind the biggest
festival of sport on
Earth. With the London
2012 Olympic and
Paralympic Games now
just around the corner,
we find out how these
tests have helped
organisers to “get it
right first time”.
On 6am in central London on a bank holiday
Monday at the end of May 2011, about 40 UK club
runners jogged across a start line on The Mall, the
ceremonial route leading to nearby Buckingham Palace.
As they set out to cover the 26 or so miles of an
invitational marathon event, they entered a footnote
into history. They were the first athletes taking part in
an Olympic event set in London since August 1948.
They were also the first of about 8,000 participants
in what was billed “the world’s largest rehearsal”–
a total of 45 test events that were scheduled to take
place in the year leading up to London 2012, with
athletes from more than 50 nations due to compete
in front of 250,000 spectators. Dubbed “London
prepares”, this series of test events, from archery to
artistic gymnastics and from table tennis to taekwondo,
was designed to help perfect the London 2012 Games.
The programme was organised by LOCOG, the
London Organising Committee overseeing the planning
and development of the Games. It was designed mainly
to test the fields of play; the results, timing and scoring
systems; and the key operational procedures.
Crucial preparation
“The test programme has been critical from the point of
view that this is for a one-off event,” notes James Bulley,
director of venues and infrastructure at LOCOG. “We
don’t get the opportunity to solve teething problems
over a long period. The Games come and go pretty
quickly – we have to get it right first time.”
What’s more, testing is vital in order to avoid giving
any athletes undue advantage: “For any sport, you can’t
have a situation where there’s bias in the environment that
will assist anyone unfairly,” adds Steve Cardwell, Atkins’
project manager for London 2012. For example,
something as simple as an uneven distribution of sand in
beach volleyball could give one team an unexpected edge.
Testing can literally help to level the playing field. “It’s a
question of making sure that everything is just right.”
Atkins has already played an important part in
London 2012’s development: from site planning at Horse
Guards Parade, to environmental assessment in the
Olympic Park, to advising on the overall temporary
overlay strategy for the Games. There is an awareness
that each piece of the puzzle must help to make the
event as memorable as possible for the right reasons.
“With an event of this magnitude, where the world’s
eyes will be on us, but more important, where athletes
have been training extremely hard for years, we can’t
afford to make mistakes,” agrees Ada Gonzalez of
Atkins, who is currently seconded to LOCOG, where
she is responsible for the design and installation
management overview of the services containment –
from buried cables to the poles and trusses designed to
keep power and other key services flowing to six venues.
“A test event is an ideal way not only to verify the
new methods, the equipment, the operation and all of
the required resources, but also to incorporate all the
lessons learned for the Games themselves,” she says.
“It’s also about testing our workforce”, adds Bulley,
“so they get the opportunity to be involved in the sports
that they will be responsible for at Games time and
rehearsing how they need to operate.”
The test series features some world-class sporting
events – including the UIPM Modern Pentathlon World
Cup Final and the UCI Track Cycling World Cup – and
has already brought top athletes to many iconic London
locations. In all, 43 sports and 28 venues fall under the
“London prepares”banner.
The test programme was structured in three clusters
that broadly relate to the three types of venue in use. The
temporary venues’ testing was part of cluster one, roughly
12 months before these venues will be used in earnest.
Next, the existing venues – such as the ExCeL London
exhibition centre and the North Greenwich Arena – were
tested over the winter (they have heating). And, lastly, the
new-build permanent structures, including the aquatics
centre, velodrome and main stadium, have been tested
throughout the spring. In the case of the permanent
structures, the programme was timed such that anything
being tested can remain in place until the Games.
Jeff Keas is principal architect with Populous, the
firm working with LOCOG to design and develop all
London 2012 venues using temporary overlay. While
LOCOG decided which test events would be run and at
what level – world championship or invitational, with
spectators or not, with broadcasters or not – Populous
was brought in to develop the infrastructure designs for
the test events. Meanwhile, Atkins prepared overall
performance specifications for the civil works, structural
works, acoustics and fire safety.
“Often it’s an existing venue such as ExCeL,” Keas
says. “You have the building, but inside it’s just big empty
halls. We bring in seating and other temporary materials
being used for the Games, from tenting to cabins. We
have a ‘kit of parts’ and use that to develop the design.”
31
Populous has also designed temporary venue overlay
for locations where there isn’t a viable structure in place.
These venues are a key feature of London 2012. In fact,
LOCOG is using almost the same amount of overlay as
the three previous summer Olympics combined.
“That was intentional and it’s a very sustainable
approach,” Keas says. “We’re not building any white
elephants. From a testing point of view, if something
is going to be put together just for the Games – such as
the beach volleyball arena at Horse Guards Parade – then
we have to build it during the test events.” Part of the
challenge for London 2012, then, has been not only
testing venues in operation. Much of the time, it’s involved
testing the construction of the venues themselves.
Don’t scare the horses
32
This includes Greenwich Park, which played host to a
temporary three-day-event cross-country course, as well
as a temporary main arena for dressage, show-jumping
and the shooting and jumping events of the modern
pentathlon. An invitational three-day test event was
held at Greenwich in July 2011.
It constituted not only a big build in a limited period,
but it was created on a sensitive World Heritage site:
Greenwich Park itself. Owing to the uneven surface, a
wedge-shaped platform made from plywood, aluminium
and steel and held above ground by 2,100 pillars had to
be built in order to level the arena where the shooting
and equestrian events take place. Atkins was involved in
the original feasibility work that led to the selection of
the platform. It produced the performance specifications
and supervised the contractors as they did the detailed
design and installation. During the event, Atkins oversaw
how the platform was performing.
As Cardwell notes, “We had to make sure that the
vibration of the platform was minimal so the horses
didn’t feel it and to prevent any undue impact on the
ground, which includes a lot of archaeology as well as
utilities and services that mustn’t be damaged.”
Keas concurs: “We wanted to ensure that it wouldn’t
scare the horses and that we could put an event into a
“There is an awareness that
each piece of the puzzle
must help to make the event
as memorable as possible
for the right reasons”
World Heritage site with the right level of care.” In fact, he
says, the venue and platform passed with flying colours.
Unique challenge
The most time-constrained temporary venue is Horse
Guards Parade. The Queen uses the space to host the
annual Trooping the Colour event in June. This gives
LOCOG a six-week window in which to construct a
main centre court, two warm-up courts and three
training courts, along with all the ancillary
requirements, including spectator seating for 15,000,
catering and toilets, broadcast facilities and lockers.
The test event, says Bulley, gave LOCOG the chance
to test logistics and to understand the site conditions,
and the relationships with the venue owners.
“This is a highly sensitive area with Grade I listed
buildings. The test gave us the opportunity to
understand how we are going to move trucks through
Westminster, where the set-down areas will be and
how to bring equipment in and out of that space.”
Duncan Firth works for Drivers Jonas Deloitte, which
has a team of project managers in place at LOCOG
to look after the design, build, installation and removal
of the temporary venues in the Royal Parks. Firth is the
project manager responsible for Horse Guards Mall,
which is The Mall and Horse Guards Parade combined.
Like Greenwich Park, the field of play for the beach
volleyball event is on top of a platform. It can’t be put
on the gravel of Horse Guards Parade itself because the
sand has to remain uncontaminated and well drained,
during both the test phase and the Games themselves.
It comprises a complex structure built in the shape of
a shallow swimming pool and is designed to hold the
3,000 tonnes of sand transported from Surrey on
120 lorries and moved into place on conveyor belts.
The sand needed to meet the stringent specifications
of beach volleyball’s governing body. In use, rain needed
to drain freely through a membrane under the sand
and disperse harmlessly on to the parade ground itself.
Both the sand quality and the field of play were given a
resounding thumbs-up by the athletes.
Technology is also a significant piece of work for all
concerned and must be tested just as thoroughly. For
example, Atkins was involved in developing the designs
for the cable routings for all of the test event venues,
including the beach volleyball arena. Drivers Jonas
Deloitte worked with Omega to install its scoreboards,
video boards, timing and results infrastructure. All of this
work feeds into the Games network, which links back to
the main hub at LOCOG and will, among other things,
be an important source of timely results updates for the
media. Given the number of suppliers involved, testing
that network functioned properly was essential.
“We tested it”, Firth says, “and now we know that
it actually works.”
Lessons learned
“The test programme
is critical... The Games
come and go pretty
quickly – we have to
get it right first time”
The test events have clearly proven to be a worthwhile
exercise. “There is a huge amount of learning that
comes out of every test event in terms of how the
operational teams work together,” Bulley says.
“The value of testing can’t be overestimated,” agrees
Firth. As a result, there have been reviews and changes
have been made accordingly. The equestrian surface and
the BMX surface have been revised after further trials.
Also some aspects of technology, transport and crowd
management arrangements have been tweaked.
Another key element for LOCOG is testing so-called
“C3”: command, communications and co-ordination
of information. “That’s how we communicate as an
organisation, how decisions are made, how issues are
escalated,” Bulley says. “All of these aspects are being
tested and we’ve got some very helpful insights from it.”
An added benefit of the testing has been informing
and getting people used to what it will be like at Games
time. The best example was the road cycling test event
that involved 150 world-class cyclists, six London
boroughs, four Royal Parks and road closures in Surrey
along a 140km route. The quality of liaison with
numerous stakeholders was key to the success of the
event, as was the co-operation of the public.
And one of the biggest gains from the test
programme is the way it has built relationships and
confidence with stakeholders, among contractors, with
the public, the broadcasters and not least with the
athletes and their respective federations.
“The test programme covers the whole London 2012
experience,” says Atkins’ Cardwell. “Transport, security, the
food, the spectators’ sight lines, the athletes’ experience –
all of these things factor in. And, when you have a test
event, the learning goes up exponentially. Everybody wants
to make the experience brilliant come Games time and
these test events could make all the difference.”
33
new
views
wastewater
It’s been over 150 years since work began
on Britain’s first major sewer system. Back in the
mid-1800s, as the country’s population was
exploding, cholera and typhoid were running
rampant in the country owing to a lack of proper
sewage management. Without adequate sanitation,
urban life was desperately unhealthy and short.
How far has the UK come in 150 years of
wastewater engineering? While the scale is different,
many of the same challenges remain. As Afriqnmun
Lovejoy, a senior advisor with the UK Environment
Agency, says: “Growth and increased urbanisation
combined with changing climate patterns mean we
may need to think very differently about the way that
both foul and surface water are managed.”
Water pressure
34
Wastewater:
end-to-end solutions
As economic and environmental pressures bear down on the
wastewater industry, engineers are looking at the problem in a
whole new light. What was once a potentially dangerous
by-product is now forming part of a carefully managed
system and, in the long run, it could turn out to be a valuable
resource to be exploited.
Among other things, it’s a question of capacity.
There are more people in today’s urban centres,
and they are living longer and healthier. They are
responsible for more sewage in the system than
ever before. There’s also more paving influencing
the flow of wastewater, more groundwater
entering the sewers through structural defects and
more intense storms owing to climate change.
As a consequence, modern sewer systems
must go beyond the fundamentals of moving
wastewater and treating it along the way. They
must be designed with increased capacity in mind.
In the UK, the £200m extension of the
wastewater treatment works in Liverpool is a prime
example of the challenges involved in creating a
wastewater system for the future. The extension is
intended to meet the needs of Liverpool’s growing
population as well as the higher standards set by
regulators – a level of quality that, under the
circumstances, the system cannot meet easily.
While the existing treatment facility at
Liverpool’s Sandon Dock has played a vital role in
helping to clean up the river Mersey, it’s in serious
need of an upgrade.
“We could achieve that quality level with the
plant we have now, but it would require a lot of
nursing,” says United Utilities’ Mark Walker,
principal project manager on the Liverpool
scheme.”We decided it would be beneficial to
extend the facility and build a new secondary
treatment process.” The original facility will
continue to operate while an extension is built on
the nearby Wellington Dock site.
United Utilities’ plans for the extension were
drawn up with the support of Atkins and its joint
venture partners Costain and Galliford Try. The
plan had to answer the need for a robust process
as well as respect the historic nature of the dock,
which played a part in the city’s designation as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. As part of
the proposal, Atkins will support United Utilities
with civil, geotechnical, environmental and
structural engineering.
The extension will play a key role in upgrading
the facility, continuing the Mersey’s transformation
from the UK’s most polluted river into one clean
enough for trout and salmon, to say nothing of the
benefits to the local population.
Going with the flow
Without sufficient capacity, there’s a risk that
changing weather conditions, such as more
extreme rainfall, could overwhelm wastewater
networks and cause flooding. Under the
circumstances, untreated sewage could bypass
treatment works and go straight into streams
and rivers, says Dr Geoff Darch, principal climate
change consultant with Atkins in the UK –
“obviously, that’s not good from an environmental
or a health perspective”.
“In future, it looks like we’re going to get our
rainfall in more severe, shorter bursts,” notes Darch,
which is exactly what the system does not need.
The problem is further exacerbated by
“creep” – when rain falls on largely impermeable
built-up environments, it runs straight into
sewers. Every paved space represents more creep.
So much so that it’s become a significant factor in
urban water management.
Part of the solution to this slow creep is
wastewater demand management, using things like
sustainable urban drainage systems. Green roofs,
soakaways, permeable paving, rainwater harvesting
and urban ponds bring ecological benefits, but
mainly they keep rainwater out of the sewer.
There are also tools being developed to ensure
that the water flows well once it goes into the sewer
system. One such tool, which Atkins is testing with
its partner, is a flusher device. These gate-like devices
35
“These days
we’re looking
at wastewater
more as
‘resource
water’ and
at treatment
plants as
‘resource
recovery
facilities’.
In a very tough
economic
environment,
taking this
approach can
reduce the
costs of
treatment and
derive revenues
that will stop you
having to raise
water prices
immediately”
10%
of the direct
carbon emissions
stemming from
the waste
management
greenhouse gas
inventory sector
in the UK came
from from
wastewater
handling in 2008.
Source: Defra
allows the impact to be predicted up to six hours
before the rainfall arrives. Flooding events can
therefore be anticipated and resources deployed
to manage the network and warn customers.
“There will be an increase in population during
the Olympics,” says Taylor. “Using hydraulic models,
we’re assessing the potential impact of this
additional flow as Thames Water will want to be
able to show London in its best possible light,
making sure that there’s no flooding or pollution.
One of the key sites for London 2012 is the River
Lea, which flows through the Olympic Park.
Understandably, Thames Water wants to make sure
all risks in this regard are mitigated accordingly.”
“Real-time control is all about
using spare capacity in order to
reduce the peak flow in other
parts, thereby avoiding any
overflows or minimising the
chances of flooding”
Waste not, want not
tip when the water level behind them rises to a
certain level, thereby releasing the water. The
increased flow has the effect of cleaning sewer
pipes further downstream, flushing the system and
cutting down on blockages.
Additionally, source control and effective
management of the effluent being produced by
large organisations will be needed in order to
minimise the amount of pollutants that need to
be treated, says Lovejoy.
Ultimately, these strategies are only part
of the puzzle and each represents a cost. You
need to combine strategic asset and wastewater
infrastructure management in order to find a
complete solution.
No-build solutions and beyond
As ever in urban environments, there are real
constraints to building anything new to any
scale, as Gwion Kennard, UK technical leader in
wastewater networks at Atkins, observes:
“You’ve got some real practical issues in highly
urbanised areas. Larger sewers require larger
treatment works. Quite often there is no
physical room. What’s more, it’s carbon
intensive to construct new sewers.”
It’s no surprise, then, that capital cost can be
an issue and financing major water infrastructure
programmes can be problematic if there is no
obvious and urgent need – ie, increased flooding
or threats to public health. This exerts pressure to
find so called “no-build” solutions.
“You identify a problem and you do
everything you can possibly do with technology,
analysis, strategy and planning to end up in a
situation where hopefully you don’t have to build
anything at all and you manage what you’ve got
differently,” says Kennard.
“We have to be efficient and effective in
where we direct our resources,” he adds. “It’s
about dealing with high priority operational
issues such as blockages and getting there
before problems occur.”
For many working in wastewater management
in the UK, it’s a question of controlling the network
in real time in order to take advantage of the entire
capacity of the system, notes Andy Taylor, chief
engineer of wastewater networks at Atkins.
“Real-time control is all about using spare
capacity in order to reduce the peak flow in
other parts, thereby avoiding any overflows or
minimising the chances of flooding,” he says.
This is achieved by tapping into and
analysing all available data in real time and using
the results to activate a range of automated
operational responses such as penstocks and
storage tanks as needed.
Atkins has been working with Thames Water
to assess the benefits of FloodWorks, a flood
modelling software system, to manage the
operational performance of the wastewater
system during the London 2012 Olympic and
Paralympic Games. Floodworks allows the realtime simulation and forecasting of extreme
conditions in urban drainage systems, using the
Met Office’s rainfall data. It brings together
forecast rainfall with live depth data from more
than 130 locations in the wastewater system and
While increased capacity and no-build strategic
considerations are at the heart of most wastewater
thinking these days, the Holy Grail for wastewater
management is to drop the word “waste” itself.
“These days we’re looking at wastewater
more as ‘resource water’ and at treatment plants
as ‘resource recovery facilities’,” says Doug
Fredericks, senior practice manager with Atkins
in North America. It makes sense: in theory,
ten times more energy could be released from
wastewater than it takes to treat it. “In a very
tough economic environment, taking this
approach can reduce the costs of treatment and
derive revenues that will stop you having to raise
water prices immediately,” he says.
Atkins is working on a number of projects
designed to recover value from wastewater. For
example, generating methane from wastewater
using biodegradable digesters is an established
practice and one that United Utilities has already
adopted in Liverpool and Manchester. Once
captured, the methane is put through a combined
heat and power process to produce electricity.
Another proposal uses wastewater sludge to power
plastic production, among other options, while a
third looks to recover heat from sewers for use
in buildings.
The pressures exerted by climate change,
demographics, economics and regulation are
prompting the water industry to re-examine
the way it runs its business – and wastewater
management is no different. Besides, who wouldn’t
feel better knowing their own “contribution” was
being put to good use instead of placing an undue
burden on the place they call home?
37
It has been over
150
years
since work began on Britain’s
first major sewer system
profile
CV
United States
Air Force Major
General Dean Fox
served as Air Force
Civil Engineer at
US Air Force
headquarters
(the Pentagon) in
Washington, DC,
before joining The
PBSJ Corporation
in 2006. At PBSJ, he
became president
responsible for
design and
engineering,
as well as the
infrastructure,
water and
environment
businesses, until
he was named
president and CEO
of Atkins in North
America in 2011,
following Atkins
acquisition of PBSJ.
Calm
under
fire
Dean Fox
CEO, Atkins in
North America
After 34 years as a civil engineer in the
US Air Force, Major General Dean Fox
knows what it takes to get the job done
even in the most challenging of circumstances.
How is he using this experience to make a
difference in his new role as president and
CEO of Atkins in North America? And
what does he think the future holds for the
company and for engineering in general?
Your military background seems
like a very different scenario to your
current job – tell us about your military
career and how it has influenced your
approach as a CEO.
Growing up, I was an Air Force brat.
My dad was in the Air Force and I liked
that life, so when it came time for college
and I was considering a number of
different universities, I opted for the
Air Force Academy in Colorado. I loved
the outdoors and I wanted to be an
engineer, so it was perfect for me.
I graduated with a degree in civil
engineering and spent 34 years in the
Air Force working at military installations
around the world. I did three tours
outside North America, two in Europe,
a total of six years and then a year plus
in the Pacific. It was direct engineering
39
“My military job required integrity, accountability and
performance, and leadership to build a team that’s made
up of great people dedicated to supporting the team’s goals.
It involved all the same qualities I use today to manage
and motivate my staff here at Atkins”
What about the profession itself?
How has engineering changed during
your career?
Technology and innovation have led
to better integration of engineering
disciplines. Engineers now have an
opportunity to see the big picture and
visualise where they are going in a project.
This prepares them to grow beyond a single
discipline into managers of multidiscipline
projects and, eventually, into managers of
multiple projects.
Engineers also need to be well versed in
their clients’ needs – including sustainability,
green design and energy management –
throughout that design process and
understand how that’s going to affect the
performance of a facility, for example. They
have to know how to deliver a design that
is very “buildable” as well as client-,
environment- and energy-friendly.
I think it has also become collaborative
by necessity. When I was a young engineer,
you were only concerned about your piece
of the pie. You can’t do that now. It’s not
enough to produce a single element in a
good design. We’re being challenged to
work with a “big picture” view,
encompassing everything from safety issues
to producing environmentally sound
projects that reduce energy and are of the
highest quality. Technology has enhanced
our ability to look at this big picture and
make sure that what we’re doing marries
up with all the other elements.
I’m also seeing more client involvement
in project development and delivery than
we may have seen ten years ago, as well
as more cost awareness. Their expectations
are changing to a large degree because of
budget constraints – they have limited
dollars and they want to make sure they
get a project delivered for minimal cost –
but they still want high quality results.
What about the business? What
does the future hold and where are
the opportunities?
Historically, almost 90 per cent of our
work in North America has come from
repeat clients, which of course we are very
proud of. However, following the financial
crisis and its aftershocks, a lot of our longterm clients don’t have the same level of
funding, regardless of whether they’re in
the public or private sector.
As a result, competition for every dollar
is a lot tougher. For example, a few years
ago only a handful of companies would
have competed for large projects. Today
there could be 15 to 20 or more. Very large
firms are going after small projects, while
smaller firms are partnering to compete
for larger projects. Ultimately, we have to
be a lot more innovative in our approach
and always have the right combination of
talent to win.
Our greatest opportunities for growth
are in areas where we are making strategic
investments in North America. For example,
we have worked somewhat on the
periphery of the energy markets, in that our
primary service has been in environmental
permitting and planning. Yet we have the
capability to do utility design, electrical
distribution, pipeline design, roadways,
site and civil engineering development
work to support energy projects.
We are also growing our client base
in the federal market. We’ve done
significant work with the Department
of Defence, but there are plenty other
federal departments that we are capable
of supporting, and we are excited about
the prospects of doing more federal work.
Our work in transportation and water
are strong practices and we continue
to see great opportunity in these markets.
Frankly, even if new projects are getting
harder and harder to fund, there will
always be aging infrastructure that our
engineers will need to retrofit.
You’ve mentioned environmental
permitting and planning – how are
issues such as sustainability and energy
management affecting engineering
in the US right now?
I would break it into two broad areas.
One is facility sustainability and energy
management; the other is renewables.
On a facility side, there’s a huge focus
in North America on sustainability and
on energy and facility design as well
as the construction processes. Four or
five years ago we began working towards
accreditation in Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) – one of the
most widely accepted systems for assessing
the design, construction and operation
of green buildings in the US. Today, our
designers are predominantly LEED-certified
and capable.
The Department of Defence requires
a minimum standard in LEED design –
LEED Silver is the minimum level of design
that the department will accept on any
project tender. If you can propose designs
to a LEED Gold or Platinum standard for
a similar price, they’re all for it. Not only
do we have people who are qualified
to these standards, but we also have
a team that can certify buildings as LEED
compliant. We designed the first toprated LEED Platinum facility for the federal
government and it was a huge success.
There’s also an executive order in the
US that requires a 30 per cent reduction
in facility energy and installation energy
on federal installations – and again our
LEED credentials fit in well here. There
is a push, but I don’t think it’s aggressive
enough yet on climate change and
renewables. Having said that, there are
some federal installations that produce all
of their own energy internally and are net
providers to the energy grid, which is the
ultimate goal. I think that, as the economy
comes back, we’ll see a lot more growth
in those areas.
We’re also seeing this demand for
sustainability, energy and environmental
safety and design more and more outside
the federal government as well.
Is there anything that might get in
the way of this growth?
Skills shortages in some key areas could
be a factor – the economy plays a role
here as well. Right now, we can hire in
many engineering disciplines readily but
as the economy improves there’s likely
to be a fight for talent. And, as we grow
our employee base in an improved
economy, there’s going to be heavy
competition for the talent that’s out there.
In niche areas such as nuclear there’s
always high demand worldwide. There’s a
lot of talent that is retiring and will be hard
to replace. Those are areas where Atkins will
be bringing in new talent.
There are professional engineering
organisations that are trying to motivate
and encourage more science and engineer
development. One of their key charges
is to award scholarships to students going
into engineering and scientific careers.
We’re big supporters of these programmes,
but I think all engineering firms have to do
even more. Let’s face it: it’s a tough field
and can be very demanding, both
intellectually and educationally. We have
to give students more of an incentive to
make the commitment; we have to reach
out and let them know the critical role
engineers are destined to play in shaping
the world of tomorrow.
41
©2010 New York Focus LLC
40
experience, either at home stations,
airfields or deployed locations in both
peacetime and war.
The engineering that I did during
those 34 years included hands-on design,
planning, programme management and
project management, as well as airfield
design, construction, repairs, industrial
facilities, office buildings, housing,
environmental programmes and water
programmes. It was engineering at its best.
In some ways, much of my later career
in the Air Force was like being director
of a public works facility before eventually
becoming mayor. There were 20,000 to
30,000 people at some of the installations
where I worked – they were like small
cities with an airfield.
By the end of my military career, I had
functional responsibility for 60,000 military
and civilian engineers worldwide. I was
working directly with people who were
responsible for military communications
or security or flying operations or any
number of other daily tasks. I was
supporting them day-in, day-out and
serving them in the same way you would
a client in civilian professions.
Of course, there are big differences
between the military and private sector
but there are also a lot of commonalities.
My military job required integrity,
accountability and performance, and
leadership to build a team that’s made up
of great people dedicated to supporting
the team’s goals. It involved all the same
qualities I use today to manage and
motivate my staff here at Atkins.
In the military, our goal was to deliver
quality results on time and within budget,
which is the same goal as engineering in
the private sector. Of course, the urgency
might have been a little greater if you
were under fire at the time.
electricity
network
supergrid
42
In 2010 the EU’s oil bill across the
27 member states rose by €70bn. Europeans
are paying about €300bn a year to import
energy, according to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change’s 2011 “Special
Report on Renewable Energy Sources and
Climate Change Mitigation”, conducted for
the European Commission.
Europe depends on imports for half its
energy needs and that proportion is set to
rise to about 70 per cent. This will leave EU
members competing for foreign gas and oil
supplies in a world where emerging economies
are becoming ever more energy hungry.
At the same time, EU member states are
legally obliged to cut their carbon dioxide
emissions by 20 per cent, with 20 per cent of
energy consumption coming from renewable
sources by 2020. Europe’s leaders have also
set a long-term target of reducing domestic
emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050.
How can Europe balance this commitment
to a low-carbon future with its growing
dependence on foreign energy imports as
well as the pressure to cut energy costs?
The obvious solution is to find alternative
sources for energy closer to home and this
process is already under way. As Tim Yeo MP,
who chairs the UK government’s committee on
energy and climate change, told the Financial
Times in September 2011: “We potentially
have enough wind, wave and tidal energy to
more than match our North Sea oil and gas
production, and transform the country from a
net energy importer to a net energy exporter.”
The only problem, according to Yeo?
“If we continue developing renewable
resources site by site, it could be prohibitively
expensive, requiring large individual hubs to
connect each power plant.”
This situation is being played out across
Europe, as country after country explores
Current
thinking
With energy costs remaining
volatile, Europe relying increasingly
on foreign imports for its power
and the EU’s commitment to a
low-carbon energy future, there’s
an urgent need to find cleaner
energy sources and make them
go as far as possible. This raises
the question: is it time for
a European supergrid?
“Instead of connecting two countries
at a time, you are connecting maybe
four, five, six countries under the sea...
It’s a question of making a network
that is as cost-effective as possible”
44
its own unique options to solve this
power struggle, with each developing its
connection regime differently.
For many – especially those in northern
Europe – the solution may lie in the
supergrid. This proposed idea for a crossborder network of new high-voltage, directcurrent (HVDC) connections would take in
wind, tidal, hydro and solar generation –
eventually comprising a European supergrid
and conceivably stretching from the Baltic
to north Africa.
According to John Pritchard, director of
power with Atkins in the UK, this network
could be “particularly relevant to the
development of renewables such as offshore
wind resources”. These are intrinsically
inefficient: power can be
generated when it’s not needed
or not generated when it is
most required, depending
on how the wind blows.
The supergrid could take the
power from these points of
generation over long distances
to the points of consumption –
“it sorts out the intermittency problem
of renewables,” says Pritchard.
Rather than having each country
generating and consuming its own electricity
in isolation, he adds, renewable power
generation sites could instead act as nodal
points for connection to the grid.
“The different time zones and cultural
habits mean electricity demand profiles
vary across Europe,” explains Richard
Smith, future transmission networks
manager at the UK’s National Grid.
“Interconnection can help us to solve
these balancing challenges in harmony
with other areas of Europe.”
In Norway, for instance, surplus wind
energy can be used to pump water uphill
into reservoirs. When the wind dies down,
this water can be released to create hydroelectricity on demand. It follows that the
more extensive the grid, the more useful
this balancing effect would be. Solar power
from southern Europe could be brought in
to supplement supplies in the north when
wind generation is low, while wind power
can be sent southwards on cloudy days.
“You’re going to need baseload
generation for when the power fluctuates,
plus frequency control,” says Pritchard.
“This demands very controllable generation,
which renewables such as wind turbines,
by their nature, can’t supply.” A supergrid
could, in theory, change all that.
Undersea DC
A reasonable degree of
connectivity already exists
across the European
continent. Six HVDC
cables run under the
Baltic. Three run under
the North Sea, including the
world’s longest, NorNed, which
at 580km connects Feda in Norway
with Eemshaven in the Netherlands. And a
handful of shorter HVDC links transect the
Gulf of Finland, the Adriatic, the Irish Sea,
the Skagerrak and the Ligurian Sea.
Are these the beginnings of a
supergrid? Yes and no, according to Ana
Aguado Cornago, CEO of the European
lobbying group Friends of the Supergrid.
“We are talking about going beyond this
to an interconnected, meshed network,” she
says. “Instead of connecting two countries at a
time, you are connecting maybe four, five, six
countries under the sea. In the middle of the
point-to-point cable you make a ‘T’ connection
to a hub. It’s a question of making a network
that is as cost-effective as possible.”
“A supergrid is something that we will evolve
to. People have different views on exactly what
it will look like. But will it happen? I think in
some way, shape or form… absolutely, yes”
This view is borne out by the final report
of the OffshoreGrid project, a study of 321
offshore wind farm projects, funded by the
EU’s Intelligent Energy Europe programme.
OffshoreGrid’s study argues that using hub
connections for offshore wind farms and
forming only one transmission line to shore
is often “highly beneficial”. It claims that
creating hubs for 114 of these 321 farms
would require €14bn less in investment
by 2030, compared with connecting each
of the wind farms individually to shore.
The study also points out that such
a meshed network would boost the
offshore interconnection capacity in
northern Europe from 8GW today to
over 30GW. This represents a substantial
gain overall and one that would cost only
“about €0.1 per KWh consumed in the
EU27 over the project lifetime”.
There are still challenges of course:
OffshoreGrid would cost an estimated €85bn,
so obtaining sufficient finance under the
current economic circumstances is a big
barrier. Another is developing the necessary
technology and capacity quickly enough.
Offshore wind capacity in Europe is expected
to reach 150GW by 2030.
AC/DC convertors need to be developed,
as do fast DC breakers; cable manufacturing
capacity needs to be increased (about
30,000km of cable might be needed in the
North Sea and Baltic alone); and more turbines
and cable-laying vessels need to be built.
Moreover, as Pritchard points out,
different manufacturers’ systems will need
to be compatible, particularly in the areas
of control and protection. This means
that a regime of harmonised network
codes and design standards, underpinned
by a regulatory framework, needs to be
developed well before deployment.
But R&D won’t happen “until regulators
give investors reassurance that they will get the
right return,” Cornago says. “They need to see
political will and a regulatory framework.”
This is an enormous hurdle on its own,
but at least some governance structures
are already in place. In 2008 the European
Commission set up both Entso-E, a
42-member association of Europe’s
electricity network transmission system
operators to promote integration between
member states’ markets and the North Sea
Countries Offshore Grid Initiative (NSCOGI).
Within 15 months of its inception,
Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden,
the UK and Norway had signed a NSCOGI
memorandum of understanding to consider
“the strategic importance of present and
future infrastructure developments”.
If a supergrid can be achieved, its
proponents believe that Europe will gain a
harmonised electricity market, one where
the amount of electricity that needs to be
held in reserve in order to meet demand
can be minimised. If individual countries
are connected to a network where they
have access to a wider range of electricity
supplies, there will be less pressure to hold
on to power being generated locally. As a
consequence, Europe could bring down the
cost of electricity to the consumer.
The supergrid could also reduce our
dependence on imported gas and oil,
providing the nations of Europe with energy
security. Perhaps most importantly, it could
help the EU to meet its carbon emissions
targets for 2050.
If and when
Given all the challenges, will the supergrid
happen? It depends whom you ask. There
are cost considerations as well as political
concerns, but if it offers a solution to the
issues of growing energy needs, dependence
on foreign supply and the commitment to a
low-carbon future, is it not worth the cost?
In the OffshoreGrid final report,
Geert Palmers, CEO of 3E, the renewable
energy consultancy providing technical
and strategic guidance on the project,
paints a clear picture: “Moving towards an
efficient, integrated European electricity
market will not be possible without a
reliable, modernised and efficient grid,
both onshore and offshore. Onshore, this
means significant investments to strengthen
current infrastructure, which faces strong
public opposition and lengthy project lead
times. Offshore, the challenge is to more
efficiently connect power harvested at
sea with the onshore transmission system,
while at the same time building a system
which can actively contribute to stability
and security of supply by enabling further
integration of the European power market.
“A coherent European long-term vision
for both the onshore and offshore electricity
grid is a prerequisite to make the required
steps in an optimal way,” he writes. Creating
a supergrid could fulfil that long-term vision.
For others, however, there are still
serious questions to be answered.
The UK government’s response to the
climate change committee’s original
report highlights 24 issues that will need
to be addressed before it can commit
to the supergrid. These range from
the fundamental – “the UK electricity
transmission system needs to be updated”
– to the pragmatic – “the UK is far behind
the EU’s targets on interconnection”.
Nonetheless, the overall verdict remains
clear: the UK government is putting resources
into “the development of interconnector links
and a number of interconnection projects
between the UK and other countries”. In
other words, despite some reservations, work
is already being done.
Or, as Smith of National Grid points out:
“A supergrid is something that we will evolve
to. People have different views on exactly
what it will look like. But will it happen?
I think in some way, shape or form, by
2050, absolutely, yes.”
45
danger
zone
risks and rewards
The new face of risk
We are living in an age of natural disasters, financial crises,
the threat of terrorist attacks and socio-economic upheaval.
What does tomorrow’s risk landscape look like,
especially for the built environment? And, when risk
becomes part of your daily bread, what does this mean
for the way we live our lives and conduct our business?
“Changes in the macroeconomic picture
have had a profound effect on our appetite
for, and attitude towards, risk. We are far
more risk conscious than we’ve ever been,”
says Nick Gray, UK board director at Atkins
company Faithful+Gould. “That’s reflected
in the systems we have in place for
evaluating risk on every project from top to
bottom – from commercial considerations
to design and health and safety. We are
becoming more analytical and sophisticated
in the way that we handle it.”
The economic slowdown has affected
every organisation, changing views of risk
at all levels, from pitching for new business
to project planning and long-term businessbuilding strategies. Increased competition
means that the likes of Faithful+Gould must
manage a wider array of risks than ever.
Put simply, risk management systems need
to be more robust than they were.
Today’s risks come in new and more
complex combinations, a consequence of a
far more interconnected and interactive
world. Consider the sequence of events
that led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster:
these might have been predictable but
were considered so unlikely as to not be
factored into anyone’s long-term strategy,
from the scale of the earthquake and
tsunami to the extent of the equipment
failure that followed. It was a true “black
swan” moment and the consequences are
still being felt far beyond the recovery work
being done in Okuma and Futaba.
Risk, in a profound sense, is becoming
more systemic – ie, what happens in one
area is likely to affect another. Companies
are being forced to change their focus on
risk management to something more
specialised and better resourced in order to
keep up with the pace of change.
The global risk picture
The World Economic Forum (WEF) “Global
Risks 2012” survey identifies risks such as
resource scarcity and energy price volatility,
cyber crime and “macroeconomic
imbalances” as particular concerns over the
next decade. All of these have the potential
to disrupt the fundamental infrastructure on
which global companies rely, including
communication networks, energy grids,
supply chains and transport systems.
“It’s completely mind-boggling how
complex the world is becoming,” said
Steve Wilson, chief risk officer for general
insurance at Zurich speaking at the launch
of the WEF report. “There are six billion
or so mobile phones on the planet, for
example, as well as numerous other
interconnected devices. This level of
complexity is hard to grasp and it’s hard
to understand the risks that come from it,
but we’re starting to learn.”
Greater connectivity brings new
benefits. But it also means new challenges,
including cyber crime. “There’s a whole
new range of cyber risk and a whole lot of
interconnectivity in the real world.
Everything runs through technology, from
power grids to nuclear power stations.
This represents huge exposure,” Wilson
said. “Historically, we’ve developed systems
that we often think are mitigating risk,
but in fact they’re concentrating risk.
We don’t understand this fully yet. There
may be risk exposures and concentrations
that we’re not fully aware of.”
Globalisation over the past two decades
has generated bountiful opportunities, but
it has also delivered its own insecurities.
Wilson mentioned cyber security and the
possible impact on power grids or the
internet. Other risks include natural
disasters, such as volcanic eruptions and
hurricanes, which, because of the world’s
interdependencies, have the potential to
have much wider impact than before.
The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud,
for example, showed how susceptible
international supply chains could be to any
interruption. A relatively innocuous episode
miles to the north of the continent soon
incapacitated Europe’s supply streams,
leaving many businesses and consumers
short of essential items and, in some cases,
causing complete business failure.
Risk strategies
Given the scale of the risks and their
potential impact, how should businesses
respond? David Cole, chief risk officer at
Swiss Re, again speaking at the WEF report’s
launch, said the one thing we should not do
is overreact. The Eyjafjallajökull episode, he
says, showed how some safeguards are
based on limited information, rather than
the risks that are actually in front of us.
“With hindsight, the original policy
responses to that eruption were incorrect,”
Cole said. “Industries and regulators were
fairly quick in responding to the situation, but
their responses were based on somewhat
archaic regulation, which led to significantly
higher costs than society should have had to
bear. We need our leaders to look ahead as
opposed to looking back. They need to be
more dynamic in their approach. It’s
important that regulations be made more
flexible to respond to change effectively.”
In the case of the Icelandic eruption,
Cole said the regulators over-regulated,
unnecessarily harming the economy in the
process. But, in response to other risks
– including those that exploded with the
sub-prime mortgage and eurozone crises –
regulators may have under-cooked their
response. “We need to get the balance
right with regulations, while our safeguards
must be anticipatory rather than reactive.”
The problem for policy-makers in reacting
to certain systemic risks is that they inevitably
run into special-interest groups who would
prefer that no one mentioned risk at all. As a
2010 Lloyd’s of London report on systemic
risks stated, a “chief difficulty with building
objective systemic risk assessments is that
labelling activities as ‘risky’ threatens the
interests of those who are invested in them”.
For example, policy-makers may want
to install tighter controls on various types of
new technology – biotechnology, for
example – which could be dangerous for the
planet if they were to fall into the wrong
hands. On the other hand, companies and
research scientists on the verge of great
discoveries naturally want to continue with
their research.
Often it is up to companies to
protect themselves, rather than looking
to the regulators. Lloyd’s recommends
that managers conduct regular systemic
audits considering the impact on essential
operations should critical features of
international infrastructure break down. It
47
suggests that companies should look at
“significant episodes of corporate
transformation” in the past decade, such as
outsourcing or offshoring, to see if these
could be affected by international shocks.
It also recommends scenario planning;
working with industry groups to improve
early-warning capacities; working more
closely with governments; and lobbying for
research, planning and education at an
international level.
The World Economic Forum report urges
firms to consider appointing “chief risk
officers” who can take a strategic “allhazards” view of liabilities. It states that
several have done so in recent years,
including many financial services institutions.
Project risk management
48
As for how companies should manage
specific projects, Chris Chapman, emeritus
professor of management science at the
University of Southampton, says that they
should not over-emphasise “risk
management in the common practice sense
of events which may not happen” to the
exclusion of normal, effective decisionmaking considering all relevant uncertainty.
“The trap that many organisations fall
into is to focus on risks in a limited events
sense rather than uncertainty about
achieving objectives,” Chapman says.
“The goal should be achieving planned
performance in terms of a balance between
different objectives. You can then think of
risk in terms of failing to meet your
expectations or objectives, and shape plans
to respond to this broader view of risk.”
True risk management, he argues,
means that companies are actually prepared
to change their plans, organisational
structures and contractual arrangements as
a direct and integrated part of the risk
management process. It is not an adjunct
to the rest of the management process.
“If you’re focusing on risks in event
terms rather than planning to achieve
objectives, then you’re spending a lot on
the wrong kind of risk management,” says
Chapman. “You may think you’ve covered
it because you’re following a standard. But
in fact you’ve missed what matters. If you
stood back and reviewed things with some
common sense, you’d get a better result.”
Chapman, who has written several
books about project risk management and
researched the subject since the 1970s,
argues that one of the most effective ways
to minimise risk is to ensure “reciprocity
and mutuality” in any scheme. He says
that “a lot of people follow rigorous risk
management procedures” but fail to ensure
that basic contracts are written so that the
parties share risk appropriately.
Chapman argues that a fundamental
cause of the financial crisis was less about
the failure of risk management at particular
financial institutions and more about the
basic imbalance of risk in the financial
system itself.
“In the banking system, people take
inappropriate risks from a social perspective
because it’s profitable for them and they
don’t bear the brunt if those risks go
against them,” he says. “That’s breaking a
fundamental rule about risk management.
People who take risks in their own interests
should not able to pass their realised effects
on to others.”
Likewise, in infrastructure, managers
can lull themselves into a false sense of
security by imagining that another partner
has taken on the risk for some part of the
project. But that assumption is only as
good as the ultimate health of the other
party. “If the contractor goes broke, and if
things don’t work, you haven’t solved
anything because the problem will come
back to roost,” Chapman says.
In a real project, risk is a trade-off with
both time and money constraints, according
to Professor Daniel Straub, leader of the
Engineering Risk Analysis Group at the
Technical University of Munich. For example,
he says that engineers can minimise
problems by modelling physical processes,
thereby taking some of the variability and
uncertainty out of the work.
But engineers face huge complexity,
which can hinder effective risk management.
“If you look at major incidents, a big part of
the risk comes from organisational or
procedural problems,” Straub says. “As
projects have become more complex, they
have also become increasingly fragmented.
We have larger numbers of different people
and companies working on the same
projects, which can present big risks.”
Similarly, time pressure can impinge on
effective communication. “There has always
been time pressure, but it seems to be even
more acute now,” he adds. “How do you
establish conditions to ensure that people
understand what others are doing and
guarantee this exchange of information?”
Straub says that formal procedures for
risk management and information exchange,
including a centralised project database,
can improve communication, ensuring that
protocols are well defined and key insights
are exchanged in a standardised way. But
he warns that this sort of technology will
get you only so far. There is a danger of
information overload. And sometimes the
most important information transfer – and
risk mitigation – occurs away from any
formal system. “There are things that can’t
be standardised and put into mitigation
procedures,” he explains. “Often it is simple
knowledge exchanged during a coffee
break. You meet a colleague and start to
talk about the project, and he mentions
something about the geology, for example.
Such informal exchanges are an important
part of the process. They also ensure that
common sense isn’t left out of the picture.”
Not if, but how
For Nick Gray at Faithful+Gould, the
question when deciding which projects to
pursue and which risks are acceptable is
how to those manage risks effectively.
“Engineers are generally regarded as
conservative and risk-averse by nature – if
you’re designing a bridge or other
structure, you have to be,” he says. “But
we can’t ignore opportunities because the
risks exist. We simply have to be even more
rigorous in how we manage them.”
Gray adds that the UK itself is being
compelled to pursue nuclear power
because renewables can’t provide all the
energy it needs. “In the past we might have
looked at a project and thought: ‘That
looks risky; we don’t want to go there.’
Now, having identified the risks and
developed robust management strategies,
we can pursue such opportunities with a
greatly increased likelihood of success.”
GLOBAL RISKS 2012
The World Economic Forum’s annual “Global Risks” report, now in its seventh year,
provides detailed analysis of 50 major risks. These include everything from the
unintended consequences of nanotechnology (considered to be unlikely) to chronic
fiscal imbalances and rising greenhouse gas emissions (far more likely). Crucially,
the report underlines the interconnected nature of the emerging risk landscape,
with crucial systems considered to be increasingly vulnerable.
“‘Global Risks’ maps risks against a ten-year time horizon. We want to look at
these from a long-term perspective, but not so far in advance that it’s not relevant
to the decisions being taken today. With this report we’re asking where we should
be focusing our attention today for the long term, with regard to the risks of major
systemic failures,” says Lee Howell, managing director and head of the Centre for
Global Events and Risk Response Network at the World Economic Forum.
“For example, the likelihood of severe income disparity is very high in the next
decade, as is chronic fiscal imbalance, so the risks we’ve identified are very much
economic and societal. But rising greenhouse gas emissions, cyber attacks and
water supply are also perceived as very likely risk areas for the next ten years.”
Atkins would like to
thank everybody who
agreed to participate in
this publication, with
particular thanks to all
external interviewees:
Kevin Allars, Professor
Abdullah Mohammed AlShamsi, James Bulley, Chris
Chapman, David Cole, Ana
Aguado Cornago, Duncan
Firth, Professor Chris Hale,
Paul Hart, Professor Paul
Jowitt, Jeff Keas, Afriqnmun
Lovejoy, Edmund O’Sullivan,
Tony Roulstone, Dr Guy
Schumann, Richard Smith,
Professor Dr Daniel Straub,
Abigail Thorne-Lyman,
Mark Walker, Steve Wilson
Contributing writers:
John Coutts, Christian
Doherty, Selwyn Parker,
Ben Schiller, Wilma Tulloch
Cover photograph:
Getty
Published for ATKINS by
Caspian Media Ltd
(www.caspianmedia.com)
© 2012 Opinions expressed
by contributors are their
own. Reproduction in
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written permission is strictly
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Certified paper.
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