Education
An engineer’s training, then a water policy degree
I studied flood and coastal engineering at Brunel, alongside placements at the Environment Agency, then studied how water is governed and paid for at Oxford.
University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment
MSc Water Science, Policy and Management
- Graduated
- 2025–26
- One-year, full-time
A one-year master’s degree on how water is managed: the science of catchments and climate, and the economics, governance and policy that decide what gets built.
For my dissertation I built a reproducible national flood risk screening for Ghana’s 260 districts. A Monte Carlo (Latin hypercube) analysis, with 11.7 million district-level damage calculations, showed which priorities hold up when the assumptions change. The same work was part of my independent consultancy in Ghana.
- Dissertation
- National fluvial flood-risk assessment and priority stability under uncertainty in Ghana
- Scope
- 260 districts, 90 m national grid
- Method
- Nine hazard and damage combinations; Monte Carlo (Latin hypercube)
What it taught me
- Catchment and climate processes, water quality, and water and health.
- Water economics: who pays, who benefits, and how options are compared.
- Water governance and policy: how decisions are made, and by whom.
- Residential fieldwork.
How I use it
- Treating a flood problem as a question of governance and finance, not only engineering.
- National-scale risk screening under uncertainty: my dissertation became the Ghana flood risk study.
- Writing for decision makers: plain findings, with the uncertainty stated.
Brunel University London
Flood and Coastal Engineering, alongside the Environment Agency
Two degrees in flood and coastal engineering, studied alongside placements at the Environment Agency. The placements led to my first Environment Agency role, as a Flood Risk Officer, in 2020.
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2020–22
BSc Flood and Coastal Engineering
The engineering basis of my work: how floods are estimated, modelled and defended against. My dissertation, Flood risk assessment and preliminary design of a town, applied it to Hamstall Ridware, the village I was working on at the Environment Agency. It covered the hydrology, the linked 1D–2D model, a check against the February 2020 flood, damages and options, and a preliminary wall design.
How I use it: design-flood hydrology and 1D–2D modelling; reading designs and option appraisals on partnership schemes.
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2018–20
FdSc Flood and Coastal Engineering
A foundation degree in flood and coastal engineering, studied alongside my first Environment Agency placements from 2019.
How I use it: the foundations of the discipline, which every later project builds on.
Thank you
With thanks
I am grateful to my colleagues at the Environment Agency, who gave me the opportunity to take part in these projects and showed me how flood risk work is done in practice, and to the staff at Brunel University London and the University of Oxford for their teaching, encouragement and support. My work is better for all of them.