Dr Neil Williams CGeog (Geomorph)

Biography

Occupation: Senior Consultant Employer: URS Memo: Dr Neil Williams is a Senior Consultant for Fluvial Geomorphology and Flood Risk at URS engineering consultants. Neil is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Chartered Geographer (Geomorph). Neil's principal expertise are river and catchment processes, channel form and function, fine sediment erosion, transport and deposition, flow hydraulics, flood risk assessment, and implementation of the Water Framework Directive. In over ten years of post-Masters experience he has worked with Local Authorities, water companies, developers, regulators and academics, in a broad range of catchment environments across the UK and overseas, bringing international experience to local projects. Neil has previously held two Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Geography and Environmental Sciences, in the UK and in Canada. He retains active collaborative linkages in the research of channel form, particle dynamics, cohesive sediment transport, and the source, distribution and fate of nutrients and contaminants. To support this, he has contributed to the development of in situ laser techniques for monitoring sediment transport, and genetic fingerprinting techniques to trace the sources of sediment organics / nutrients, and analyse the roles of living microbial sediment content in particle flocculation and sediment transport or deposition. Neil is a regular invited peer reviewer of submissions to major international journals, including research from the UK, USA, Canada, Brazil, India and China, and he has a series of publications on physical processes and sediment dynamics in river systems.