MBE for flood risk special professor

A University of Nottingham Special Professor, Edward Evans, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to environmental science. As Lead Technical Advisor and science team leader for the Government Office for Science Foresight Future Flooding project, Edward helped supply the evidence base for the UK Government's current strategy for flood risk management, set out in the policy discussion document Making Space for Water.

Now the UK Foresight model is being applied to predict future flood risks in the Taihu Basin, the region surrounding Shanghai in China, by Professor Evans and colleagues at The University of Nottingham including Professor Colin Thorne, one of the Foresight Future Flooding project's Principal Investigators.

Professor Evans and Professor Cheng Xiaotao of the Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR) in Beijing are Joint Project Directors of the 'China-UK Scenario Analysis Technology for River Basin Flood Risk Management in the Taihu Basin'. This project is developing climate and socio-economic forecasts and suitable risk management solutions to quantify risks of flooding in Shanghai and its surrounding area.

The two Chinese characters in Shanghai's name mean 'up, on or above' 'the sea' or 'the upper reaches of the sea'. If the sea were to reach Shanghai during a storm surge, flood damage to this global financial and manufacturing centre would have catastrophic economic and social impacts. The region's importance can be gauged by the fact that even though it is home to only three per cent of China's population, it produces 13 per cent of GDP.

Professor Colin Thorne from the School of Geography at The University of Nottingham congratulated Professor Evans on his MBE. "This award reflects Edward's hard work leading Foresight Future Flooding projects in the UK and our important work in China's Taihu Basin — the latter undertaken entirely in his role as a Special Professor at The University of Nottingham.

"We're delighted that his expertise has been recognised in this way, highlighting the international importance of research into the prediction and modelling of risks associated with flooding in strategically sensitive population centres."