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For full details and to register your place, please visit the event website.
Please briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with hydraulic modelling and the water industry
Matthew Mullarkey (MM): Hydraulic modelling is at the core of my role and accounts for a substantial part of my day-to-day activities, as it has throughout my 20+ year career in the water industry. I have specialised in hydraulic modelling and worked to analyse, design, and troubleshoot the full variety of schemes typical of those throughout regulated and non-regulated water. I have a particular focus and interest in steady state and transient hydraulic analysis of transfer pipelines as well as water and wastewater treatment systems.
What is the top challenge facing your industry at present?
MM: The water industry, alongside parallel sectors in farming, and industrial processing are under ever increasing public and regulatory scrutiny associated with untreated or high nutrient discharges to receiving watercourses. The current outcomes are years, if not decades, in the making. Bringing about the changes that much of society seeks will be extremely expensive, with estimates into the hundreds of billions of pounds into the far future.
How would you say your industry has evolved over the past five years?
MM:
- The affordability challenges within the water sector have resulted in a significant need to deliver more for less. Finding efficiency and locking that in has never been more important, particularly against the backdrop of inflationary pressures.
- Using data in new ways and the emergence of digital solutions has become a pivotal part of efficient delivery in recent times. In addition, the industry has really started to embrace and self-challenge on the carbon costs of solutions we develop.
What developments are going on in your industry that may have an impact on the development of future approaches to the use of modelling?
MM: Integration enablement of disparate data sources, analysis approaches and output types via emergent digital developments is growing rapidly. This will reduce barriers to cross sector and scheme type solutions being developed, helping designers move away from simply repeating what has worked before towards consistently enabling the best possible outcomes. Artificial intelligence is being discussed and debated more and more and is already being used to learn indicators of specific risks/outcomes. It will be interesting to see how this revolutionary intervention plays out in the day-to-day development of scheme designs.
What will you be presenting at the ‘Hydraulic Modelling’ seminar and how will this benefit participants?
MM: My presentation will focus on the steady state and transient hydraulic modelling of a new filter plant offtake and its impact on the existing plant inlet hydraulics. I would like to focus on the importance of designers/users leading the software rather than devolving responsibility for the analysis to the software itself. Know the product, harness its capabilities, note and allow for the constraints.
Which other speakers and presentations are you looking forward to hearing at the forthcoming seminar?
MM: All of them! – The subjects all look really interesting and I am looking forward to hearing about them all. I’m always interested to hear about pumping stations and pipeline design so the presentation by Femke Verhaart on this subject will be of particular interest.
Why is it important for engineers and industry to come together at this event and share best practice?
MM: “Necessity is the mother of invention”, so the saying goes. The water industry certainly has a lot of challenges to overcome and as a result there is a huge amount of interesting and innovative work being undertaken. The hydraulic modelling community within the water industry inspires and challenges to the next evolution and innovation. This seminar is an important part of that process.
The Hydraulic Modelling for the Water Industry seminar will take place on 19 June 2023 at the Severn Trent Academy in Coventry.
Attend to learn about recent and ongoing projects taking place within the water and wastewater industries and how new technologies are contributing to new developments in risk management and energy storage, as well increases in energy efficiency, waste reduction and maintaining the supply and quality of drinking water.
For full details and to register your place, please visit the event website.