Join us for the next EIA Community debate to explore extreme weather events in the UK, how they may change in the future and the ways in which environmental professionals can, or should, incorporate extreme weather into Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) to ensure developments are fit for the future. 

The event will feature expert speaker presentations as well as interactive breakout discussions, bringing together EIA professionals from across the IES membership.

• Workshop: Extreme weather and EIA current practice 

In this workshop we will discuss the current practice of addressing extreme weather in EIAs and as part of the EIA process. This will include discussing experience around how EIAs currently address extreme weather events, how extreme weather events feed into the design process as well as the mitigation process and what we can do to improve current practice. We will use project examples of an infrastructure project and a building.

• Extreme weather in the UK: Recent events and future projections
  The most significant impacts of weather occur during extreme events, so the Met Office issues weather warnings when severe weather has the potential to bring impacts to the UK.  In our changing climate, extreme events are increasing in both frequency and intensity, including more unprecedented events. We will review a selection of recent events in the UK, including the heatwave in July 2022 and Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin in February 2022, and explore how these events could change in future climate. 

Our EIA Community debates are a forum for thought-provoking, critical conversations around EIA from a science perspective. The Community aims to connect and support environmental scientists and practitioners working across a range of specialisms involved in the EIA process, and to facilitate meaningful discussion on the key issues facing the sector.

Register your place now to take advantage of the opportunity to network with fellow professionals.

Our speakers 

Eleni Antoniades, Vice Chair at the IES, is a Project Environmental Lead with more than 20 years’ experience in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Construction Environmental Management of infrastructure projects.

In recent years, her focus has been on the delivery of aviation and defence infrastructure, working on reducing the environmental impacts of the details of design and construction in highly sensitive environments. Eleni’s background is in environmental science and she has a technical and practical approach, helping to ensure projects go beyond legislative compliance and environmental requirements, to ensure the use of best practice, current methods and new technology, with the aim to avoid and prevent adverse environmental impacts. 

At the IES, she has an interest in advocating science-based environmental practice. She founded, and continues to play a leading role in, the EIA community.

Jenny Pirret joined the Met Office in 2014 and has since gained broad experience looking across timescales; from forecasting the weather for the next few days, to analysing climate projections covering the rest of the 21st century. Jenny now works in the Weather and Climate Extremes and Impacts team, empowering people to deal with extreme weather in our changing world.