Dr Swenja Surminski joined the Grantham Research Institute and the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy in September 2010. Swenja's current research projects are around public private partnerships for managing natural disaster risks in Europe (as part of the EU's FP7 ENHANCE project); UK flood insurance; the costs and benefits of climate change in Russia; loss and damage as a new UNFCCC concept; and the role of the private sector in climate adaptation.

From April 2007 until September 2010, Swenja worked for the Association of British Insurers (ABI) as Climate Change Adviser. Her key areas of work were climate impacts, mitigation policies, and the role of insurance in the climate change context. Swenja coordinated the ABI's response to the 2007 summer floods in the UK, led several industry research projects on climate change, and sat on various research steering groups, guiding the knowledge exchange between climate scientists and the insurance industry.

Swenja has been a member of the Management Committee of the industry's ClimateWise initiative, of the European Insurance Industry Climate Change Taskforce (CEA) and of the London Climate Change Partnership Steering Group. She has been advising on climate change risks at UN, EU and UK level and is the author of several papers on these topics. Prior to taking up her role at the ABI, Swenja was working in the Risk Management division of insurance broker Marsh McLennan and in the Geoscience Team at Munich Re.

Swenja was a Fulbright Scholar in the US, studying Environmental Economics and International Relations at the University of New Hampshire. She received a PhD in Political Science/Economics from Hamburg University for her work on 'Climate Change and the Insurance Industry' in 2000.


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Dr Peter Fox started his current role in Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) as Head of Strategy and Investment in June. He joined the Environment Agency almost 21 years ago and during this career, Peter has undertaken a wide variety of operational and strategic roles, including working on biodiversity, climate change and environmental regulation. He has held an operational role in FCERM leadership for a number of years and was heavily involved in the response to the Cumbria floods in 2005 and 2009. Last year he led the national change project for FCERM in the Environment Agency, implementing changes to better reflect the new duties and responsibilities emerging from the Flood and Water Management Act.

Peter has a doctorate in environmental science from Lancaster University, an MSc in wildlife conservation from University College London and a BSc in agriculture from Reading University. He is married to a GP and lives near Chester, sponsoring his two daughters though university.

Presentation: Developing a local strategy

Lead local flood authorities have responsibility for developing a local flood risk management strategy for their area, covering local sources of flooding. In order to meet the challenges of flood prevention and climate change, greater cohesion in public and private partnerships must be significantly developed.

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Nick Reynard is Science Section Head at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, managing a large group of staff including land-surface and hydrological modellers and molecular parasitologists. He is the CEH Science Area Leader for Natural Hazards research, which includes the areas of flood and drought prediction and forecasting, as well as issues around invasions of non-native species. The focus of his personal research is the development of continuous flow simulation approaches for river flow modelling, in particular their application to investigating the implications of environmental, including climate change, the quantification of uncertainty in hydrological modelling under non-stationarity and the development of techniques for detecting and attributing trends in environmental datasets.

Nick represents CEH on the Steering Group of the Natural Hazards Partnership and was part of the Foresight Flooding programme as well as being a member of the Science and Engineering Panel of the Pitt Review of the summer floods of 2007. Since joining CEH in 1989, he has also spent time working for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (then Department for Energy, Transport and the Regions) and the Environment Agency.

Presentation: Flood prediction: helping to prepare and respond to more frequent extreme weather

The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) is a leading research organisation providing tools and information in support of improved flood management, from operational tools for flood forecasting to providing scientific evidence in support of policy on incorporating climate change in flood management decision-making.

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Jeff Stacey has worked in emergency planning since 1990 as an Emergency Planning Officer in Essex; the County Emergency Planning Officer for Suffolk; the Leader of the Regional Resilience Team for the East of England; the Contingencies Manager for the Port of London and, after a short project with the Government Decontamination Service, is currently the District Emergency Planning Officer for Rochford District. This is a part-time post allowing time for consultancy work and supporting the Emergency Planning Society, where Jeff is the Chairman of the Environmental Risks Professional Working Group and Secretary to the Oil Pollution Professional Working Group.

Presentation: Building development in flood risk areas: how to decide if it is safe

Emergency planners have to take difficult decisions on whether a development in a flood risk area is safe. Work carried out by the Environmental Risks Professional Working Group of the Emergency Planning Society has helped to develop robust plans for managing developments in flood risk areas. Understanding how flood risk areas have developed their resilience and response strategies can help aid future recoveries.

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