The latest episode of the Engineers Collective is out now: listen in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, your usual platform or the player below.

This month’s guests are WTW head of flood and water risk research Neil Gunn and WTW climate practice associate director Dulce Perez Romero.

They join rob to discuss where they sit in the civil engineering ecosystem when it comes to dam maintenance; working with asset owners on the risk of their dam fails and the liability should this happen.

The discussion touches on the history of dams, the status of dams in the world today, the increasing hazard of dam failure caused by climate change and some recent high profile failures.

They then get into the nitty gritty about how WTW assesses the risk of dam failure, how to prevent it – and how worried we should be about it.

Prior to the interview portion, host Rob Hakimian is joined by NCE senior reporter Thomas Johnson to discuss recent proposals for a £130bn high-speed Rail Loop around the UK and the political wrangling over the Hudson Tunnel in America.