Rodney Bridle to give a Keynote Lecture at Earthworks 2025 Conference
The BGA is pleased to announce that Rodney Bridle will give a Keynote Lecture at our Earthworks 2025 Conference in September. The title of his lecture is Earth Dam Engineering – past, present and future.
Rodney (Rod) is a civil engineer, specialising in earth dams, pore pressures and internal erosion. He was introduced to earth dams when, as a student, he worked for two summers at Derwent Dam near Consett in County Durham. Whilst studying for an MSc at Imperial College London he was introduced to Mr Thomas E Hawksley, of T & C Hawksley, eminent dam engineers, and subsequently worked on the design of Empingham Dam, which now retains Rutland Water near Leicester. As Resident Engineer – Dam, he supervised construction of ‘his’ dam and wrote it up with Professor Peter Vaughan and Howard Jones, in ‘Empingham Dam – design, construction and performance’ which won the 1986 ICE Telford Gold Medal.
He eventually became a Partner, Director and Leader of the Earth Science and Dams Group at Watson Hawksley. Among their projects were Queen’s Valley asphalt core rockfill dam in Jersey, Pollan concrete and till core rockfill dam in Ireland, Tees Barrage and dams on soft and not so soft clays in Brunei. There were also numerous Reservoirs Act inspections, many at old canal dams, often followed up by safety works.
Rod is a past Chair of the British Dam Society and the UK Member of the ICOLD Technical Committee on Embankment Dams.
Registration for the conference will open shortly and sponsorship / exhibition opportunities are still available. Visit the conference website here to find out more.
