Wood, Water & Innovation: Building Resilience in Rural Environments - The Forestry Engineering Group Symposium 2025

This recording covers how forestry, timber, water management, and safety regulation intersect with land-based engineering, and why agricultural engineers sit at the centre of these systems.

* Apologies for the background noise in some of the interviews, it was a lively conference environment!

Key Takeaways

1. Timber & Species Diversification - Prof. Dan Ridley‑Ellis

• Future timber supply must adapt to climate change and disease, so we need species diversification beyond traditional commercial species.
• What matters to most users is performance, not species name: strength, durability, processability.
• The timber of 2050 is already in the ground – current forestry decisions lock in future material properties.
• Small datasets on “new” species are a big risk; **some data is better than reputation-based assumptions**.
• Opportunity: engineers specifying materials should ask for performance-based criteria, not just traditional species labels.

2. SuDS & Water on Difficult Land - Anna Cuanalo MICE - ARUP

• Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) rules were written for urban settings but are now being applied to rural infrastructure (forest roads, access tracks).
• - This creates compliance challenges but also opportunities for integrated water and land management.
• Agricultural engineers are central in:
• Designing roads and access on steep, wet, rocky land.
• Managing soil, runoff, and erosion at landscape scale.
• The profession is broader than “things with wheels”: it’s soils, water, land use, and access engineering.

3. Practical SuDS in Forestry - Felix Merry Natural Resources Wales

• In Wales, SuDS is now unavoidable for many forest schemes; forestry is effectively a test bed for others.
• Engineers must upskill in hydraulic modelling to justify schemes to regulators.
• Practical hierarchy:
• Prefer infiltration into soil.
• If collected, attenuate and slow the flow (e.g. swales, check dams, timber dams).
• Last resort: discharge to watercourses.
• Shows the rising need for hydrology‑literate land engineers who can demonstrate performance, not just build tracks.

4. CDM Regulations in Forestry - Iwan Lloyd Williams MICfor – Forestry Consultant

• Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) absolutely apply to day‑to‑day forestry operations.
• Forestry is not a cowboy industry: it already identifies hazards and manages risk; CDM mainly formalises existing duties of care.
• Forestry has its own professional safety guidance (e.g. FISA); much of CDM is about clear roles, responsibilities and documentation.
• For agricultural engineers, this reinforces the need to treat land-based projects as formal construction work in the eyes of the law.

Soundbites

-“The timber we need in 2050 is already in the ground.”
- “Trees grow wood for their own reasons – they’re not thinking about us.”
- “Some data is better than no data.”
- “Agricultural engineering sits right in the middle of our land management.”
- “SuDS was written for urban flooding, but it’s now landing on steep, wet forestry ground.”
- “Forestry is doing CDM already – just with different words.”

Keywords / Phrases

- Species diversification
- Sitka spruce, homegrown spruce
- Wood properties, performance-based specification
- Climate resilience, future resource
- SuDS – Sustainable Dra<