ASDSO: Advancing and Expanding Technical Expertise

Regardless of their role or experience, many in the dam safety community seek opportunities to deepen their knowledge and expand their expertise through training. Training is in high demand by both individuals looking for a path forward in the industry and employers looking to develop a knowledgeable, long-term staff. Training also informs those throughout the community about the latest trends and evolving industry best practices. In many ways, ongoing training throughout your career is becoming essential whether you are a federal or state regulator, dam owner or operator, engineering consultant, or any other dam safety professional.

Many organisations cannot offer this support internally, and outside expertise is needed. As a US-based non-profit association dedicated to dam and levee safety, The Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) aims to fill this role and support the dam safety community by offering opportunities to receive ongoing training. Through its industry-leading training programme, ASDSO aims to create a community of qualified and effective dam and levee safety practitioners.

Your Training Roadmap

ASDSO has built its robust training programme through heavy collaboration with community experts who understand the diverse educational needs of a modern dam safety professional. Through many meetings, workshops, and summits, ASDSO has developed a roadmap called the Programme of Study to determine what areas of education are necessary and what topics should be prioritised to practise effectively. 

Our training programme consists of conferences, technical seminars, and webinars. These different offerings allow for a level of customisation to fit your specific time, budget, and educational needs. All ASDSO courses are taught by trainers who are experts in their field of study with a strong knowledge of the subject matter. While ASDSO training is developed for professionals in the US, many training topics are relevant globally. Additionally, for those in the US, most ASDSO training qualifies for professional development hours needed to maintain licences and credentials.   

We have embraced virtual learning for nearly a decade through our webinar programme. Virtual learning has allowed a broad, international audience to take advantage of ASDSO’s technical training opportunities. It also allowed the organisation to continue offering training during the height of COVID-related travel restrictions. 

Our monthly live webinars also provide a valuable opportunity for real-time interaction with instructors, who can answer questions through the live chat feature.  Following the live events, recordings are available through the on-demand library which has more than 125 training webinars available to be accessed anytime and anywhere.

For those seeking more in-depth training, technical seminars provide a multiple-day deep dive into their respective subjects. ASDSO offers a series of seminars that are offered both live and virtually. Currently, there are ten seminars that rotate either annually, biennially, or by request. Additional seminars are developed periodically and as determined by the training committee. The current ten courses cover dam subjects such as basic soil mechanics, construction and inspection, improving emergency operations for failures and incidents, inspection and assessment, seepage and stability analysis.

Attending an ASDSO conference in person is the best way to complete technical training while having critical peer-to-peer interaction. ASDSO hosts annual and regional conferences each year that consist of concurrent technical sessions, workshops, field trips, and an exhibit hall. An on-demand-only option is also available for those who cannot travel to the annual national conference which is held each September. While mainly an in-person event, attendees still have access to all sessions on-demand following the event. This blended format gives attendees the unique opportunity to network face-to-face and watch every presentation available at the conference for six months. Each regional conference also features training topics relevant to the region, with some applicable to dam and levee safety professionals across the country. 

Dam Safety is ASDSO’s annual national conference. This year’s event is to be held in California, US from 17-21 September.

Dam Owner Education

One of the most important components of dam safety is owner education. Dam owners are legally responsible for maintaining their dam safely, and it is critical that owners understand relevant laws and regulations, proper operation and maintenance practices, rehabilitation needs, emergency action planning, and how to hire qualified dam engineers.

State regulatory programmes are one of the best tools for owners to access guidance information. ASDSO regularly works with state programmes to hold one-day dam owner education workshops. Although ASDSO works to customise workshops for each state, typically, one of three courses is presented:

• The Need-To-Know Basics of Owning a Dam.
• Dam Engineering 101: An introduction to how dams work for owners, operators, or engineers unfamiliar with dam safety.
• Operation & Maintenance.

ASDSO strongly believes in the importance of advancing and expanding the technical expertise of dam and levee safety practitioners through ongoing training. Training opportunities serve the individual and the larger dam safety profession by creating a knowledgeable workforce and fostering a more connected, unified community of professionals. We are proud to support the dam safety community through our robust training programme.

IHE Delft: Capacity building 

Dams and hydropower development in most countries (developed and in developing) have experienced ups and down over the past 30 years. During longer periods without significant development and new construction, specific know-how has been lost due to retirement and movement to other more profitable areas. 

Such a lack of specific education in the field of hydropower and dams, along with a lack of experienced staff in organisations, makes it very difficult for the younger generation when entering the industry. Specific education for such new staff is required. This is one of the reasons why the International Commission of Large Dams formed the Technical Committee on Capacity Building in Dam Design and Safety several years ago. The committee detected that project development and management in most developing countries suffer from low organisational capacity, a lack of understanding of the full spectrum of project development requirements (planning, design, construction, operation and safety management), poor baseline data, poor quality of existing studies, doubtful project prioritisation, a lack of construction capacity and extremely high construction costs. All of these issues increase project risks, implementation time and cost. The committee has a goal to mobilise know-how and organise knowledge transfer to the countries with the need for such education.

IHE Delft Institute for Water Education is the largest international graduate water education facility in the world and is based in Delft, The Netherlands. Over 23,000 water professionals from more than 190 mainly developing countries and countries in transition have been educated at the Institute. In addition to its educational activities, IHE Delft is focusing on capacity building and is organising a wide range of short, intensive and highly specialised courses, aimed at upgrading and refreshing the knowledge and skills of mid-career professionals and senior experts.

In the field of hydropower, IHE organises three short courses on small hydropower development, a basic course on hydropower development, and power waterway design course. Other topics covered in short courses include GIS, hydrology, flood and drought prediction, river morphology and sediment transport, ecological and social impacts, water and river basin management. IHE also organises custom-made training to upgrade knowledge and skills, and/or introduce new technologies within an organisation. 

Capacity building is also a part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 project which intends to support the European hydropower industry while at the same time fostering sustainable development in selected target countries in Africa and Latin America. IHE organised a two-week course on this with project partners to deal with topics of interest for small hydropower planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance, as well as environmental and social impact and financing. In the final workshop participants develop the pre-feasibility study of a small hydropower plant. 

Such education has a function to not only fill knowledge gaps, but also update staff on the newest developments, especially in the field of dam safety and monitoring, environmental and social impact and their mitigation and omission. 

Specific training and courses in the field of dams and hydropower are very important for a new generation of experts. The courses, dependent on the participants’ knowledge have to address the participants’ needs and include new developments and state-of-the-art technologies. 

ENTURA: Targeted training

We have a major task ahead to build skills and capacity as technology, construction methods and O&M are rapidly evolving. Even for experienced businesses and workforces this is challenging, but even more so for those new to clean technologies. These businesses need support to effectively and sustainably incorporate such developments within their asset portfolios.

For many engineers and managers, role expectations also continue to broaden. Dam engineers need to keep abreast of changing legislation, regulations and procedures for modern dam safety programmes, which keep evolving in the wake of major dam failures. 

Investing in workforce planning and training will help businesses manage technical, commercial, social and environmental risk; deliver key functions; and achieve their long-term business goals and strategy. Building the skills and competencies of the industry workforce is a critical step towards achieving the goal of safe, reliable, enduring dams and power infrastructure. 

As Hydro Tasmania’s consulting arm, Entura draws on more than a century of experience in the power and water sectors as a hydropower owner-operator and consultant. The Entura Clean Energy And Water Institute (ECEWI) opened in 2012, capitalising on our expertise to deliver knowledge sharing, capability development and training services across the full lifecycle of energy and water infrastructure. In its first ten years, ECEWI has delivered more than 200 renewable energy training programmes to over 2550 participants from 24 countries, amassing almost 10,000 training days.

ECEWI supports energy and water businesses to upskill their workforces through short courses or training programmes customised to suit their location, objectives, working conditions, timeframes and assets. It can also assess training needs and systems and develop programmes to strengthen organisational capabilities and capacities. The courses are delivered by technical experts in Entura and Hydro Tasmania, and by strategic partners and subject matter experts. 

ECEWI has found the training participants keen to learn and update their skills. Individuals recognise the benefit of gaining more underpinning knowledge and practical methods and approaches that they can take back to their job roles, lifting their own capability and that of their organisation. 

Entura in-person training in progress in Tasmania, Australia.

For companies, there is increased recognition that people are their greatest asset and that they need to invest in developing their people as well as their systems and processes. It takes people to be responsive and commercially focused, to behave safely and to communicate. It also takes people to understand current performance and identify improvements, efficiencies and innovations. 

With new technologies and methodologies coupled with ever-greater regulatory and reporting demands, the industry needs more just-in-time, targeted, workplace-based training to keep skills up-to-date. With an infrastructure boom, we will need more reskilling and upskilling to fill gaps in competencies and skillsets. One-size-fits-all training doesn’t address individualised needs, so tailored training programmes that support companies to deliver on their overall vision and strategic goals are increasingly important.

Entura’s clients value technical expertise and professional rigour, ong-term real-world industry experience as an asset owner/operator, experienced trainers who communicate effectively, and the customisation to meet particular assets and challenges. Trainers with many years of real-life experiences that can be drawn upon in a training setting are invaluable – they bring training to life, motivating and inspiring the learners. Access to Hydro Tasmania’s assets, and those of key partners, also takes classroom learning into the real world for supervised hands-on experience and competency assessment where required.

Rethink

COVID has been an impetus to rethink how to best deliver value from afar and with greater flexibility. Travel restrictions, lock-downs and physical distancing pushed us to quickly adapt to delivering remote training, with videoconferencing supported by mailed handouts. The technologies and platforms are improving all the time, and features such as break-out rooms for small group engagement help to more closely replicate a face-to-face learning experience.

A particular challenge has been determining how to remotely assess and confirm competence in operational activities – a requirement for vocational accreditation. While video is an option, there are complicating factors such as obtaining permissions for recording and confirming the identity of the individual being assessed.

ECEWI’s current response for certified training with international and interstate clients is to delay the formal assessment or explore methods for our trainer to work remotely with a site supervisor to assess a participant’s competence at the client site.

There are solutions. Even before the pandemic, ECEWI managed remote accreditation and verification of competence in cases where travel was restricted not by COVID but by practicality – such as for a remote Queensland mining site, and for a client in Micronesia.

It’s unlikely that virtual or remote training will completely supplant face-to-face training in our industry – but hybrid models that incorporate greater flexibility will no doubt become more entrenched, and we expect to see greater appetite and expectations for ongoing innovation. Despite restrictions easing, we’re still planning to retain some videoconferencing components and hybrid formats, particularly for theory sessions. This will allow more people to be involved at one time and reduce the impact on participants’ work requirements.

HR Wallingford: Contributing to safer dams

Earthen dams and flood embankments are critical infrastructure that play a vital role for many purposes. However, the potential for failure because of a breach carries severe consequences to the people and the assets they serve. It is therefore important to understand the potential failure processes and their associated impacts.

The prediction of breach often forms a key part of a flood risk assessment, which in turn provides underpinning data for a range of activities including asset design and management, spatial planning, flood incident management and emergency planning. Breach prediction can provide a range of data, comprising the timing and magnitude of flood flows and of potential breach dimensions. 

Dam breach modelling training from HR Wallingford was developed to contribute to designing safer dams

The different stages of breach development are of interest to different end users, depending upon their need and role within the community. A designer typically needs to produce a design that will perform according to the project specifications, such as withstanding certain magnitude flood events without failure. An asset manager looks at the initial breaching process and indicators of this, so as to avoid development of a catastrophic breach. A spatial planner considers potential flood conditions (flood risk assessment) that might arise from a breach. An emergency planner needs to know what will happen during a catastrophic event so they can plan for all eventualities, but also so they can offer decision-making support during an emergency. An incident manager’s role covers all stages of the process, in real time, advising on the safety of a structure during an incident and the likelihood, timing and management of any potential catastrophic failure.

Methods for modelling a dam breach range from simple rules-of-thumb, through user-defined breach equations and more advanced, predictive breach tools. In certain situations, the speed of development of the breach can have a huge impact on the consequences downstream. The same volume of water can have modest or catastrophic impacts if it is released slowly or quickly. Hence knowledge of the use of predictive breach models, that consider soil erosion processes as well as hydraulics, can offer significant benefits for critical infrastructure and emergency evacuation planning downstream.

Training content and format

The dam breach modelling course that we give at HR Wallingford aims to introduce and explain the advantages and disadvantages of each type of breach analysis. It also provides guidance for selecting the most appropriate method/tool for common scenarios. Hands-on training on our advanced predictive breach modelling tool, EMBREA, is part of this course, demonstrating the significance of looking at the embankment design detail, the associated variations in failure processes and how this can significantly affect the consequences. 

The dam breach course has been run as an open course and tailored it for specific clients. Bespoke courses have the advantage of us being able to focus on the areas of breach development in which the clients are involved. The dam breach modelling course is suited to virtual delivery, as well as in person, as there are no exercises that require a physical presence.

Virtual or in-person?

During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, training  was moved online where possible. This allowed HR Wallingford to compare the benefits and drawbacks of virtual versus in-person training.

Virtual courses allow people to attend who may not be able to travel or find it prohibitively expensive, and the number of countries represented on our courses have increased. We have also realised that different sorts of virtual courses suit different purposes. By running training predominantly as pre-recorded lectures and exercises, with some live online sessions, cost can be reduced. However, some online training needs all sessions to be live, for example where interaction is important.

Some types of training do require participants to be physically present, for example to learn to use large pieces of equipment or for practical exercises. For example, Flood and Coastal Engineering students from Brunel University in the UK come to us for summer school, which includes practical exercises, such as infiltration tests, designing and building physical models, and completing surveys. 

Even where courses do not have such elements, some people do still prefer learning in person. Classroom courses also allow people to feel more connected, network and break out easily into small groups and see local facilities if appropriate. It’s arguably also easier to concentrate on learning when away from the desk. 

HR Wallingford believes that the best people to deliver courses are the people who work with the tools and the industry day-in-day-out. That is the case for the trainers, who cover a spectrum of dam safety activities: qualified panel engineers carry out dam safety inspections; design and supervise construction of dams, develop risk assessments and sediment management strategies; and advise on use of tools that the company develop to model breaches, and to remotely monitor and give early warning of dam failure. 

Dam breach modelling training contributes to designing safer dams, planning incident responses and informing real-time decision-making if a breach occurs. HR Wallingford hope that by imparting knowledge on the dam breach modelling course that itcan make a difference to dam safety, helping people to live and work more safely with water.

ICH: The online future 

Until March 2020, the International Centre for Hydropower (ICH) had been delivering courses for hydropower professionals locally, in the regions where it works in Sub-Sahara Africa, Latin America and Asia. Its portfolio, that has been developed over the last 26 years covers themes stretching from operation and maintenance, financing and project management to environmental and social issues, conflict resolution and revenue protection. Every year ICH had offered more than 25 courses throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and in Norway. The Covid-pandemic effectively put a stop to that and forced it to be innovative and think anew.

Now, two years later ICH are finally returning to normal operations, which means meeting students face to face again. Of this ICH is truly grateful, but as one influential Norwegian business executive just said: “You can learn a lot from a crisis. You can take with you the best learning and become even better”. And this is exactly what ICH has done. The past two years have truly taught some valuable lessons:

Online training is here to stay. First, it enabled ICH to continue courses throughout the pandemic. Furthermore, online training gives access to a broader selection of experts/lecturers, and it enables shorter, more specific courses and course series. It also enables students that normally would have challenges related to travel and being away from home a possibility to attend (this, we have seen is often the case for women). And finally, the online courses give the possibility to prepare students for the on-site courses that will follow. As it is often found that the students come to the courses with different levels of pre-knowledge.

Internet-fatigue (or Zoom-fatigue) does exist. Through the monitoring programme ICH has observed that the student’s absorption of knowledge tended to get lower throughout the period. As course organisers ICH had to step up the game to keep the students engaged. Group work, assignments and one-to-one coaching with the lecturers were measures that were implemented.

People need to be together. There is no doubt that the technology that enables online courses has significantly developed over the past few years. But it cannot replace the personal interactions that on-site courses provide. Value for the participants often come from the discussions in the coffee break or the questions informally asked the lecturers. And so far, this is not what the online platform has been able to deliver.

The current course portfolio delivers and reflects current best practices in critical social and environmental themes, management, and monitoring within a global context. The curriculums span from identifying risks to seeing opportunities and embraces all sustainability dimensions.

ICH’s Gender Course in Latin America. Courtesy: Laura Bull, ICH

ICH has always prioritised quality in courses over quantity. This means small numbers of students per class, plus lecturers with a proven track record as knowledge communicators and teachers as well as being experts in their fields. Furthermore, securing engaging discussion, assignments and group work for the students are essential. ICH believes this is why students come back year after year. 

ICH believes that continuous education creates social, economic, and environmental value. It believes that capacity building is a prerequisite for securing the development of sustainable hydropower throughout the world. ICH is more committed than ever to sharing expertise and knowledge of sustainable development of hydropower. 

IHA: Advancing sustainability skills

As hydropower development continues to ramp up to play a crucial role in the clean energy transition, it is now more important than ever to provide clear and science-based learning tools to improve the sector’s sustainability. The Hydropower Sustainability Training Academy, facilitated by the International Hydropower Association (IHA), empowers professionals at all levels of experience to embed sustainability into their work practices.

Since 2011, IHA has been training hydropower professionals on how to embed sustainability into their practices and decisions. In 2020, the training programmes gained a new structure under the Hydropower Sustainability Training Academy.

The academy offers courses throughout the year designed to help professionals at all levels of experience to assess and improve the sustainability of hydropower projects. Training through the academy can be conducted virtually or in-person, and consists of lessons from a hydropower sustainability expert with supplementary homework leading to accreditation upon completion of the course.

The Hydropower Sustainability Training Academy currently offers three courses:

• Accredited Assessor Training delivers an immersive, hands-on course for individuals who want to become independent Accredited Assessors of hydropower sustainability and can perform official assessments of hydropower projects using the Hydropower Sustainability Tools and Hydropower Sustainability Standard. 
• G-res Tool Training was co-developed by the IHA and the Université du Québec à Montréal to measure greenhouse gas emissions from hydropower reservoirs. Through this course, participants will learn to obtain, analyse and interpret data gathered by the tool to successfully evaluate a reservoir’s emissions.
• Certified User Training is geared towards individuals who want to expand their knowledge of sustainability in hydropower operations. It teaches participants how to use the Hydropower Sustainability Tools and Hydropower Sustainability Standard.

Finally, the academy also delivers tailored sustainability training courses that can be designed on a case-by-case basis to fit the needs of project developers, policy regulators and international financiers. These typically focus on sustainability topics covered by the Hydropower Sustainability Tools and Standard, such as resettlement, biodiversity and invasive species and climate change mitigation and resilience. 

Since its inception in 2020, the Hydropower Sustainability Training Academy has provided over 20 training courses to upwards of 300 people. The academy has delivered training to financial institutions like the World Bank and the African Development Bank as well as to cohorts of hydropower developers, operators, NGOs and government officials across the world. 

While the priorities of each course may vary, their objectives remain the same: to adopt a factual, evidence- and science-based approach to educate participants on the realities of sustainability in hydropower and provide solutions to the most pressing challenges encountered in the sector. 

The result of 25 years of hydropower experience, we believe the Hydropower Sustainability Training Academy provides the most wide-reaching and up-to-date knowledge about sustainability in the hydropower sector. 

Adjusting to Covid-19

As with most training programmes, the Hydropower Sustainability Training Academy was affected by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Prior to the start of the pandemic, the courses delivered by IHA were strictly offered upon request and did not exist under an established identity. As workplaces moved to a virtual setting, so did the trainings. This shift pushed IHA to consolidate all training programmes into an online platform, creating the Hydropower Sustainability Training Academy. 

The academy rapidly adapted to its new virtual home thanks to the use of meeting platforms that allowed for interactive activities and discussions with participants all over the world. Offering training online has opened the door to new demographics and has increased its accessibility to those who may not have previously been able to attend an in-person course for an extended period. 

In response to the challenges of the pandemic, guidance was also released to allow for remote assessments to take place using technology such as drones and video interviews where in-person visits were not a possibility.

As travel restrictions have loosened and the demand for in-person meetings has increased, the academy has gradually adapted its model to offer a balanced mix of in-person and virtual trainings, depending on registrants’ interests. 

Ever-evolving

Sustainability in hydropower is a nuanced subject matter. The training academy takes on the challenging task of looking at the industry critically and educating the public on the existing tools that can help to improve it. 

Sustainability in any field, and especially in hydropower, is continuously evolving and the education around it must do the same. Training materials are frequently updated to reflect and incorporate the latest scientific data and research findings in the field.

One of our main objectives over the coming year is to develop more courses readily available for everyday consumers and non-expert audiences looking to enhance their knowledge of sustainability in the hydropower sector. 

Learning Hydro: More relevant than ever

The UK Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariffs, introduced in 2010, caused an upsurge in the building of small and medium-sized hydropower projects. This introduced many new people to hydropower in all aspects from design and planning of projects through to new civil works, design and production of generating equipment and introduction of environmental consenting surveys and planning. The British Hydropower Association (BHA) through its directive and members saw the urgent need for training of new entrants to the hydro sector and consequently developed and delivered two-day courses from April 2013. These were held for over 80 companies in the UK and were devised and led by Gordon Black (then owner and director of babyHydro Ltd) and David Williams (then CEO of the BHA and Visiting Professor at The University of Edinburgh).    

Together Black and Williams formed Learning Hydro and have delivered bespoke courses to companies and organisations throughout Europe, such as KGAL Consulting Engineers, GE Renewable Energy division and Scottish Water. It also holds an annual three-day course called Hydropower Insight. 

A Learning Hydro Workshop – Learning Hydro believes that there is no substitute for a group of people learning together

The most recent venture for Learning Hydro has been developing and delivering courses for secondary schools and colleges in the coastal strips of Cumbria and Lancashire in north-west England. These courses are funded from the Walney Extension Skills Fund provided by the windpower developer, Ørsted. Learning Hydro provides students from 14 to 17 years old with an insight into the basic science, components and energy generation capacity of hydropower schemes and relates these to the science, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects as taught in schools. Potential career opportunities are also reviewed.

Observations on training

Black and Williams are from engineering and business backgrounds and have come to education and training later in their careers to address a need within the hydropower sector as it gains importance as a renewable energy source. Industry and education urgently require more knowledge for new and existing entrants.  Learning Hydro concentrates courses on small hydropower, an area which encompasses all the necessary components, disciplines and environmental permitting common to all sizes and types of hydro project.

A number of participants at the courses, already employed within the sector, have commented that the major benefit was now knowing how their particular jobs suddenly made sense within the scope of a whole project. Those new to the sector bring their existing diverse professional competencies and thus add their expertise to the benefit of the wider hydropower community.

Site visits on courses, where possible, are also invaluable for obvious reasons. Owners of hydro projects are always happy to open and guide people around power stations and civil works. The Hydropower Insight course includes visits to at least six projects with differing heads, outputs, turbine type and style.     

Teaching schoolchildren is completely different from teaching adults. The schools’ courses need to cover all the same aspects as those for adults. However, the way to keep and hold young students’ attention with such a wide range of course components is much more difficult. The latest visual aid has been the building and operating a turbine test rig in groups with jobs assigned to individuals within the group. This has enhanced the means by which we can involve the students in simple but meaningful tasks which more clearly show the physics, construction and operation of a water turbine generating set. 

All Learning Hydro courses include an exercise in designing a small run-of-river hydropower scheme. This serves to cement the course component presentations. Usually working in groups and with the aid of maps and a bespoke handbook, the exercise covers intake and powerhouse positioning, calculating the catchment area and arriving at head and flow values. Finally, water turbine selection and sizing lead to power and annual energy production.

Although virtual training has the benefit of reaching a wider audience who do not have to travel, there is no substitute for a group of people learning together and being able to interact and debate with colleagues and trainers. In our opinion, virtual learning is a poor substitute for people being together and being able to work and interreact with each other.

Hydropower training is now more relevant than ever. The pressures on governments, government agencies, community organisations and electricity suppliers to produce more renewable energy must impact on the hydropower sector and its industries and result in more new and refurbished hydropower schemes. Talent is required to make this possible and assisting newcomers with introductory training in hydropower is the first step in setting wheels in motion to achieve mankind’s new aims.

 

 

Contributors

Katelyn Riley, Association of State Dam Safety Officials’ Communication Manager, and Jennifer Burns, ASDSO Training Director.  www.DamSafety.org/Training-Center

Miroslav Marence is the Associate Professor on Dams and Hydropower at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. He is also Co-chairman of ICOLD Technical Committee on Capacity Building in Dam Design and Safety. www.un-ihe.org

Amanda Ashworth, Director of Strategy, Sales and Commercial at Entura, and Manager of Entura Clean Energy and Water Institute (ECEWI). www.entura.com.au

Dr Mohamed Hassan, Global Lead, Dam Breach; Alberto Riera, Dam Breach Engineer; and Craig Goff, Technical Director at HR Wallingford. www.hrwallingford.com

Line Amlund Hagen, ICH Managing Director; Laura Cordoba Bull, Head of Studies and Latin America; and Carole Rosenlund, Head of Africa. www.ich.no

Mariana Empis is the IHA’s Sustainability Engagement Officer, and Amina Kadyrzhanova is an IHA Sustainability Specialist. www.hydropower.org

David Williams and Gordon Black, owners of  Hydro Learning. www.learning-hydro.co.uk