I help councils, parish councils, flood groups, landowners, developers and consultancies in England work out what the flood evidence really shows, and what should happen next. I spent six years at the Environment Agency, 2019 to 2025, in hydrology and modelling, permits, planning advice and partnership funding.
Real model output: a 1-in-100-year flood, plus 29% for climate change, spreading across the Hamstall Ridware floodplain in the first-generation 2022 model; 149 ha at its peak. Replayed, not to time scale. How to read this: drag the slider to move through the flood, hour by hour.
Animated map: in the 2022 model of a 1% AEP flood with a 29% climate allowance, water spreads over 79 hours to cover 149 hectares of the River Blithe and Trent floodplain at Hamstall Ridware, Staffordshire.
About the author. Hisham Nuhu is a UK-based flood and disaster risk specialist. He worked at England’s Environment Agency from 2019 to 2025 and holds an MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford. He works remotely or in-country with governments, development banks, UN agencies and consulting firms, and in England with councils, communities, landowners and developers.
Six kinds of client: councils and lead local flood authorities, parish and town councils, community flood groups, landowners and farmers, developers and their planning consultants, and consultancies that need an extra hydrologist or modeller. The work runs from a short review of someone else’s report to a full village flood study.
Five pieces of work, each built on something I did at the Environment Agency: independent reviews of flood risk assessments, Flood Zone challenges, village flood studies, FCERM funding and appraisal, and FEH hydrology with 1D–2D modelling. I also advise on flood risk activity permits, which I assessed in the West Midlands.
Planning
Before you submit, after an Environment Agency objection, or for a parish council that wants an independent view.
Evidence: Environment Agency planning advice in south London, 2023–25.
MoreFlood Zones
Whether the mapped Flood Zone is right for your site, and what an evidence review request needs.
Evidence: the Hamstall hydrology; delivery support for two Flood Map for Planning river models.
More
Communities
Why the village floods, what would help and who could pay, built with residents and landowners.
Evidence: Hamstall Ridware, where the farmers built a bund.
MoreFunding
Flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) funding: options compared on one basis, and a case that scores under the policy in force since April 2026.
Evidence: partnership advisor on council-led schemes at Chessington and Worcester Park.
MoreHydrology and modelling
Design flows you can defend, and river models checked against a flood that really happened.
Evidence: Hamstall Ridware (hydrology entirely mine; the model built jointly with an Environment Agency modelling colleague) and Stafford Common.
MoreKnowing how the evidence is read on the other side of the desk. I gave the Environment Agency’s planning advice in south London, assessed flood risk permits in the West Midlands, did the hydrology for a village flood study, and supported council schemes through partnership funding. I left in 2025; I do not speak for the Environment Agency.
That last point matters to me as much as to you. What I can offer is not influence. It is a clear sense of what a reviewer, an assessor or a funding panel will look for, so the evidence in front of them is complete the first time.
| Work | Where and when | What I did | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hydrology and modelling | Staffordshire, 2020–25 | The hydrology for Hamstall Ridware, entirely my own work, and its linked 1D–2D model, which I built jointly with an Environment Agency modelling colleague; urban flood hydrology for Stafford Common | Design flows and models built to the standard a reviewer checks |
| Flood risk activity permits | West Midlands, 2020–23 | Assessed permit applications for works near main rivers: judged the flood risk and potential damage, and set conditions | What an assessor needs to see before works near a river or a defence |
| Planning advice | South London, 2023–25 | Advice to councils on developments in and near Flood Zones, as statutory consultee; reviewed flood risk assessments against national policy, including the exception test, and the climate allowances | Where assessments stall, and what a response to an objection needs |
| Partnership funding | London, 2023–25 | Partnership advisor on council-led schemes at Chessington (est. US$1.7m) and Worcester Park (est. US$1.5m): grant requirements, weekly finance tracking, delay analysis, funding and procurement support | A scheme case that holds together through the funding gateways |
| Flood warning | South-east London, 2023–25 | 10 incident weeks as Flood Warning Duty Officer, issuing alerts and warnings as the risk level moved between yellow and red, with police and ambulance services kept involved | Flood warning and evacuation plans written by someone who has issued the warnings |
| Flood Map models | South London, 2023–25 | Delivery support for two river models that update the Flood Map for Planning: scope, programme, delivery tracking, quarterly finance and audit | How a Flood Zone is made, and what it takes to change one |
Environment Agency and council references are available on request. Values are my estimates of each scheme as delivered.
In five steps, with a fixed fee agreed before any analysis starts. A short call to understand the question; a request for the data that decides it; a go or no-go note that says honestly whether the work is worth doing; the analysis itself; then a plain-English report and a meeting to talk it through.
Scoping call
The question, the deadline and what you already hold. For a parish council: the planning reference and what residents have seen.
The data that decides it
Environment Agency products, survey, earlier reports, residents’ records. For a Flood Zone challenge: Products 4 to 7 for the site.
A go or no-go note
Is the work likely to change the outcome? If not, I say so before you spend more. Sometimes the honest answer is that the existing assessment is sound.
The analysis
Review, hydrology, modelling or appraisal, to the standard the decision needs. At Hamstall: three flood estimates reconciled into one design flow.
Report and meeting
Plain English first, technical detail in appendices, and a meeting to go through it. At Hamstall I presented the results to the village.
How to read this: the steps light up in turn; tap or tab to any step to read it.
Yes. I can take a defined package, such as an FEH calculation record, a model build or update, an independent model review or the funding case for a scheme, and deliver it to your templates and your quality process. I have written technical reports to FCERM and Water Framework Directive standards.
On Stafford Common I delivered the hydrology for the Sandyford Brook: extreme flows with climate change for a heavily urbanised catchment with several watercourses, written up to FCERM and Water Framework Directive standards and presented to partners. The modelling there was worth an estimated US$40k, within a project of more than US$500k.
The detail of what I can take on, and the software I use, is on hydrology and modelling for consultancies.
Anywhere in England. Most of the analysis is done remotely; I come to sites, parish meetings and project boards where being there helps. Every piece of work has a fixed fee, agreed after a scoping call, with the scope and the timescale in writing before I start.
I worked in the West Midlands from 2020 to 2023 and in London from 2023 to 2025, so I know both the shire-county and the London borough side of flood risk. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own regulators and rules, and my record is in England.
No. I worked there from 2019 to 2025 and now work independently. I do not represent the Environment Agency and cannot influence its decisions. What I can do is make sure the evidence you put in front of it is complete and clear.
No. Natural Resources Wales and SEPA run their own flood risk rules, and my experience is in England. For international work, see services for development partners.
An MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford (2025–26), and a BSc and an FdSc in Flood and Coastal Engineering from Brunel University London. About seven years in practice. Education.
Yes. Environment Agency and council references are available on request.
Yes, for a defined package or as short-term support: reviewing flood risk assessments, preparing a scheme for the funding programme, or tracking a scheme’s finance and programme, as I did on council-led schemes in London.
Whatever you have: the site address and planning reference, the Environment Agency’s response, the flood risk assessment, or a short project brief. I will reply with a scope, a fixed fee and a timescale.
Work with me
Send the site address and planning reference, the Environment Agency’s response or your project brief. I will reply with a scope, a fixed fee and a timescale. I don’t take on work on cases I handled while at the Environment Agency.