2020 - Safeguarding York from flooding

Posted on 8 May 2012

2020, an experimental short course themed around the issue of flooding in York with representatives from York City Council, the Environment Agency and York Archaeological Trust.

On a balmy afternoon at the end of June, an eagle-eyed observer might have spotted a band of suit-wearing students making their way across campus. This was a gaggle of the Environment department’s first year students on their way to the final session of ‘2020’, an experimental short course themed around the issue of flooding in York, developed by David Rippin and Paul Ayris, and supported by the Careers Service.

The five-day course began with a seminar of invited talks from representatives from York City Council, the Environment Agency and York Archaeological Trust, which gave the students a taste of what was to come. For the rest of the week, they took on the roles of employees of an environmental engineering company, challenged to protect the city from extreme post-climate change flooding. The students worked within groups, getting to grips not only with the complexities of flooding in the city, but also with the issues associated with being in a more corporate environment where things don’t always go according to plan.

On Friday afternoon, the groups gathered together to face down the company’s senior management team and their increasingly-competitive peers, each trying to promote their plan to save the beleaguered city. Although competition was tight, the winning proposal put forward to ‘tender’ was the brainchild of Sam Montague-Fuller, Tamsin French, Rachael Racle, Jordan Walters, Radheeka Jirasinha and Jess Taylor. After a week of hard work, inventive solutions and impassioned debate, each of the groups involved had earned a chance to unwind at the end-of-course reception. Relaxing over a glass of wine, the exhausted ‘environmental engineers’ all agreed that the week had been a great success, and wondered what 2021 might bring.