The team at Marlan have been busy following up on their most successful conference and trade show yet. The Flood and Coast conference seeks to advance the debates surrounding flood and coastal erosion risks and response. The event brings together government and trade bodies, local authorities and industry to deliver innovative technology and solutions to control the increasing risk of rising sea levels and floods around our coastlines.
The show involved months of preparation by the team at Marlan, from organising new graphics and material, to planning and preparing presentation material. The session on “Digital, data innovation and opportunities” was extremely well attended by senior members of the environment agency and industry. Organised by Andy Moores, Manager of the Environment Agency’s FCERM R&D programme, the session featured a series of rapid presentations opening with a summary of the importance and need for coastal monitoring data by Dr Charlie Thompson, Director of the Channel Coast Observatory.
Different data collection techniques were then presented including WIREWALL and Synoptic 4D. Following this, different data processing, storage, analysis and presentation methods were summarised by leading industry practitioners and consultants such as Jacobs, Royal Haskoning DHV and Atkins.
The Marlan stand was distinctive with a colour set of new graphics, banners and the new Synoptic 4D video playing. The team met with a constant stream of professionals at the stand, discussing potential flood and coastal erosion projects across the UK where Synoptic 4D could provide nearshore monitoring services and realise project efficiencies.
The highlight of the event was the Project Excellence Awards evening. Wyre council along with Balfour Beatty, the Environment Agency and Marlan had submitted a completion entry based on innovative approaches being used on the coastal defences at Rossall seawall. This involved a combination of DGPS equipped plants (enabling time and cost savings on setting out each day), UAV imagery to inspect and optimise the rock armour placement, innovative use of BIM in the construction phase and the use of Synoptic 4D in monitoring beach management interventions such as optimising the time and location of sediment nourishment. The combination of these techniques has realised over £5m cost savings to this point, with the potential for much more over the life cycle of the project.
The team are thrilled to have been awarded a highly commended accolade for this project. Marlan are eager to realise similar results on other projects where Synoptic 4D is being applied. To round off an excellent event, MD Alex Sinclair was awarded first prize (an iPad!) for completing the digital trail, visiting and talking to all participant companies who were using novel digital techniques to improve FCERM operations.