Meet Hannah Austin, Divisional Director – Water Science

Hannah Austin, Divisional Director – Water Science

What do you enjoy about working at APEM Group?

I am really enjoying the variety of work we do for the water industry. We’re asked by our clients to deal with some really unusual and knotty problems that nobody else has managed to resolve. And I enjoy working with the water teams and across the whole Group. The cross pollination of ideas and collaboration between different teams has driven some of our most exciting and impactful projects. It’s amazing to work with such an intelligent and dedicated bunch of people.

What does a Divisional Director do?

I head up the Invasive Species, Hydroecology and Water Data Science teams in providing advice and leading conversations on ecological impacts of abstraction, water scarcity and invasives, through discussions with regulators, options appraisals and into construction or implementation. It’s a balance of maintaining existing workstreams (the things we do really well and are trusted for) with sustainable growth and branching out into new areas and new technologies and growing those new opportunities.

What new technologies are you looking at?

Our teams have always been at the forefront of developing new techniques for our clients. APEM’s first Hydro-Ecological models were developed by Technical Director Dr David Bradley and Dr Andrew Davey took this forward into development of the Hydro-Ecology Toolkit when APEM was commissioned by the Environment Agency to package and improve its existing code for assembling, processing and analysing ecological monitoring and river flow data. The team have now trained water companies, consultants and regulators to use the HE Toolkit to assess the ecological impacts of current and future water abstraction and drought.

Our dedicated invasive and non-native species (INNS) team have developed a quantitative robust and adaptable assessment tool, the SRO Aquatic INNS Risk Assessment Tool (SAI-RAT) to assess INNS risk and identify mitigation measures across the assets and Raw Water Transfers which form Strategic Resource Options. The final product identifies the potential pathways of spread of a broad range of species and their life stages and assesses the current and future threat aquatic and riparian INNS may present.

What new things have happened for you in 2024?

This year, we created a new Data Science team, specifically focused around water, which will support teams in using all of the data that we’re generating and giving our clients some real insights about how best to use it. Hydro-Ecological modelling is a good example of this, using big datasets to help our clients prioritise where they’re spending money on reducing the impacts of abstraction, particularly groundwater abstraction as part of Environmental Destination: another big programme for AMP8. The Data Science team are looking at how we can support other teams with different types of data, say invasive data or water quality data, to get the most out of their datasets.

What else is around the corner for your teams?

The Invasive Species team in particular has grown in numbers and expertise over the past few years. Alongside the SAI RAT tool, they’ve been working on biosecurity for Strategic Resource options (SROs) and risk assessments of Raw Water Transfers (RWT) as they come to the top of the agenda for water companies who are managing their assets and considering how to move water around. There’s a joint challenge of needing to make infrastructure more sustainable and resilient and being able to move drinking water around from place to place, while reducing and managing the invasive species that may have been in and around their assets and making sure they don’t spread them to new locations. It’ll be a big challenge and a big focus for us over the next five years.

And what’s around the corner for APEM Group clients in the water sector?

Environmental Destination will be a big workstream in AMP8, with the need to balance the impacts of climate change and increased demand on the availability of water. Water scarcity is often a challenge in areas with the highest population growth: the South East of England for example.

Environmental Destination is all about how we can best use the resources that we have. And we’ve successfully used a partnering approach with our clients and with the regulators, to pick apart the evidence and the data we’ve gathered and to really show where investment is best placed, with evidence-based approaches and decisions that are based on supporting data.

What other challenges are water companies facing?

Timescales, skills gaps and capacity are likely to be challenges. But there are some technological advances I’ll be watching for on the infrastructure side, like 3D printing of components and repairs to ageing pipes. I’ll also be watching the roll out of smart monitoring networks, with an eye on what we do with all the data gathered. Finally, AI: the challenge will be training the systems in the right way to give reliable results. It’ll be interesting to see how the industry uses existing datasets to check and calibrate and make sure that what we’re getting is useful and allows us to make the right decisions. AI could lead to more efficiency and huge potential for us to do more with less, which could help with water bills.

It sounds like an exciting few years ahead.

It’s good to be making a tangible difference, having always had an interest in the environment and particularly things like improving water quality. I’ve seen the difference water companies are making and the efforts they make to invest in the right solutions for the environment. I’m really proud to be playing a part in that with APEM Group.

Watch Hannah Austin in our video case study on CWQM for United Utilities here, or if you’d like to discuss APEM Group or our work with the water industry contact us.