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<