Projects
Understanding how water moves, behaves and influences communities and industries across the globe.
Water is becoming scarcer in many places and increasingly volatile in others. Building sustainable communities, industries and infrastructure is becoming more challenging. Our wide range of projects highlights our innovation, our creativity, and our focus on finding solutions that rise to that challenge and positively impact our clients and the communities they serve.
Explore our projects
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Fatigue research to optimise offshore wind design
Offshore wind turbines, a vital part of global net zero ambitions, must be able to withstand continuous exposure to wind and wave forces throughout their 20–25-year design life. Our research project aims to accurately assess the fatigue life of the substructures, which will help optimise design and
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Buscot Park lake: a heritage dam reinvented
Buscot Park Lake, a historic 18th-century feature in Oxfordshire, UK, faced safety concerns due to its aging dam. A statutory inspection revealed it couldn’t adequately handle floods or emergency drawdown, prompting the need for urgent upgrades. To tackle this, HR Wallingford partnered with the
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Automating biodiversity impact assessments with Earth observation
HR Wallingford is developing a groundbreaking new tool that will transform how biodiversity impacts are assessed in infrastructure development across the UK. EO4Biodiversity will help public bodies, companies, and infrastructure developers quickly and automatically assess how different development
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A new Environmental Destination framework
To help secure a sustainable water future for the UK and Ireland, HR Wallingford partnered with APEM and WSP to develop the Environmental Destination Investigation Framework. Commissioned by UKWIR, this innovative framework complements the National Framework for Water Resources and provides a clear
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A national deep water testing facility for floating offshore wind
Floating offshore wind offers access to powerful deep-sea wind resources, essential for achieving net-zero goals. But there are major challenges: engineering stability in harsh marine environments, complex mooring and cabling, high development costs, limited large-scale testing, and regulatory
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International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-based Features for Flood Risk Management
As climate change accelerates and extreme weather become more frequent, communities around the world are re-evaluating how they manage flood risk. Traditional "grey" infrastructure - like concrete levees and floodwalls - has long been the default. But these solutions often come with high costs
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Empowering communities to manage local flood risk
As floods become more frequent and severe, more communities in the UK are facing the devastating impacts of these events. This project aims to equip local community groups with the knowledge and tools they need to play an active role in managing flood risk in their areas. It also provides risk
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