About Project Groundwater
Background
Project Groundwater is a six-year programme working with communities in up to nine high-risk flood areas of the Chiltern Hills and Berkshire Downs. It is led by Buckinghamshire Council in partnership with five other local authorities and Flood Community Groups.
The Project is seeking to understand the challenges from flooding that local people face and what measures are currently in place to support them. It is exploring new flood management and prevention techniques to enable local communities to develop flood management plans for the future.
Communities will discover more about local groundwater and its flooding risk. They will be better prepared to manage flooding with alerts, shared knowledge and innovative ideas to help minimise disruption and damage. They will also learn how to make local areas more resilient to floods in the future.
Findings from Project Groundwater, which will include a study into the mental health impacts of flooding, are set to benefit up to 200 communities and 70,000 properties at risk of groundwater flooding across the region. Learning will also be shared nationally for the benefit of communities everywhere.
Map showing the nine pilot communities in our six local authority areas
Funding
A Government Policy Statement in 2020 allocated a record £5.2 billion investment in England's Flood and Coastal Defence programme to be allocated over a six-year period. It aims to better protect over 300,000 properties and reduce the national flood risk by up to 11% by 2027.
The Environment Agency and the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published their responses to the Policy Statement.
Defra has released the £200 Million Flood and Coastal Innovation programmes, which includes:
Buckinghamshire Council secured £7.3m funding from Defra's Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation programme for Project Groundwater - focused on improving understanding, raising awareness, and increasing resilience to groundwater flooding.
Vision
Project Groundwater will forever transform how communities prepare and respond to groundwater flooding.
Mission
By working together, Project Groundwater is developing innovative and sustainable solutions to groundwater flooding that will:
- Share understanding and increase awareness
- Actively monitor flood events and improve warning systems
- Prepare communities to respond to and withstand flood events
Values
As a community-focused partnership, Project Groundwater is underpinned and directed by four core principles:
1. Collaboration
So that those impacted by groundwater flooding can be at the heart of everything we do.
2. Innovation
Because communities deserve the best service possible which existing systems and technology may not achieve.
3. Sustainability
Because the risk of groundwater flooding will continue into the future.
4. Transparency
Because we understand the real-world impacts of groundwater flooding and want to maintain people's trust in the project.
Project Groundwater is committed to embedding its values right across the partnership. Offering open and collaborative ways of working and embracing diverse backgrounds, skills, and personalities, has been essential to recognise that innovation isn’t a learned skill and that everyone can make an equal contribution. This approach has helped to foster trust across all 36 partner organisations involved in the Project.
Core Team
Project Groundwater partnership at our 2023 Annual Summit
Karen Fisher
Project Executive
Karen has had a keen interest in all types of flood risk, and catchment management throughout her 35-year career of working in consultancy, research and local government. In her day-to-day role as the Flood Manager, Karen became more aware of the issues around groundwater flooding back in 2014 and has sought to raise the profile and seek funding to raise awareness and look at options to manage the groundwater flood risk. She is keen to bring her experience in flooding, catchment management, river restoration and natural flood management to Project Groundwater and to develop links and partnerships with local communities to improve understanding and build resilience.
Jed Ramsay
Project Groundwater Project Lead
With almost 25 years of experience across all types of projects, Jed has worked extensively in flood risk, rivers, and the environmental field. He has led numerous projects, from designing and building water supplies in the tropical rainforest; to installing navigation facilities; to building formal flood defences. In addition, Jed has also played a hands-on role in coordinating responses to major floods and served as an on-call firefighter for several years. Jed helped to write the bid to secure the funding for Project Groundwater, and now leads the core team and over 35 partner organisations to ensure that the Project delivers on its objectives.
Luciano Lopes
Project Groundwater Project Manager
Luciano is a skilled Project Manager with deep expertise in planning, scheduling and presenting project status to key stakeholders. Drawing on vast experience interpreting data and translating technical details for executive teams, he ensures plans stay on track for on-time, on-budget delivery. Luciano was brought into his current role to lead cross-functional coordination, maintain comprehensive documentation, govern budgets and resources, and keep leadership updated on risks/mitigations. His analytical capabilities and solutions-focused approach enable him to keep complexity behind the scenes while showcasing clarity to partners.
Katie Hargrave Smith
Project Groundwater Communications and Engagement Officer
Katie brings experience from her environmental social sciences degree and climate engagement background to her position as Communications and Engagement Officer for Project Groundwater. She strives to ensure that all content and activities on the project are accessible to all. Her focus is on raising awareness and promoting understanding of groundwater flooding. She also assists in coordinating all our efforts to interact with communities, ensuring that we learn from individuals who have firsthand experience with groundwater flooding.
Andrew Waugh
Strategic Flood Management Team Leader, and Resilience Workstream manager
Andrew has worked in Flood Risk Management for over 11 years in various roles for the Environment Agency and Buckinghamshire Council. Andrew is the Strategic Flood Management Team Leader for Buckinghamshire Council. He manages the statutory functions of the LLFA and works on building relationships with partners and local communities to manage investigations following flood incidents and deliver flood risk management projects. He has a particular interest in helping communities and residents reduce their own risk and builds on this to project manage the Resilience workstream of Project Groundwater.
Alex Totty
Project Manager for the Placemaking Workstream
Alex works for Buckinghamshire Council as a Sustainable Drainage Officer and has a keen interest in Natural Flood Management (NFM). He brings his knowledge of the planning system and NFM to the Placemaking Workstream, project managing the Nature-Based Solutions and Planning sub-workstreams.
Find out more about Project Groundwater
