Bob Harris

Biography

• BSc (Jt. Hons), Chemistry and Geology, University of Nottingham
• MSc, Organic Geochemistry, University of Newcastle
• Chartered Geologist
• Fellow of the Geological Society
• Awarded the 2006 Whitaker Medal by the Geological Society for ‘outstanding services to hydrogeology’

Bob Harris has spent his career working, at local, regional and national levels, for public organisations in the water and environment sectors in the UK and also has wide experience of working within the European community. Through providing expertise to regulatory staff, managing applied research programmes and supporting policy, Bob has been at the interface of science and its uptake in decision-making or for policy development for over 40 years.

Examples are the production of the first groundwater protection policy for England and Wales and its associated tools and guidance, the introduction of risk-based approaches for groundwater protection and managing contaminated land, and drafting the way groundwater was integrated into the Water Framework Directive.

Bob founded and headed the Environment Agency´s National Groundwater and Contaminated Land Centre that provided a focus for and expertise on technical issues relating to the sub-surface environment. He latterly built and managed an Integrated Catchment Science research programme designed to scientifically underpin the development of new approaches and policies relating to the WFD and to ultimately deliver Integrated Catchment Management.

In 2007 Bob was awarded the Geological Society’s Whitaker Medal for “outstanding services to hydrogeology”.

Bob is currently contracted to Defra (Environment Ministry, England) as Secretariat of their Demonstration Test Catchments Programme, he also advises Defra on their new catchment based approach to River Basin Planning, and supports the University of Sheffield’s Catchment Science Centre as Visiting Professor in Catchment Science.

Bob has recently acted as specialist advisor to the House of Lords Committee on the EU (Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment), but at the other end of the scale continues to work closely with his local community in the Shropshire Hills helping understand and reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment in the Clun Valley of Shropshire.