John F. England Jr., Ph.D., P.E., P.H. D.WRE, F.ASCE, a lead civil engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Risk Management Center (RMC), in Lakewood, Colorado, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Over the past 29 years, England has conducted applied hydrology and hydraulics studies, developed methods, and led teams to estimate extreme floods and hydrologic hazards for dam safety and floodplain management. These studies integrate historical and paleoflood data, regional precipitation frequency, and rainfall-runoff modeling to provide extreme flood probabilities for risk analysis and designs. They help pave the way to move the industry from standards-based to risk-informed decision making. Spillway improvements were constructed at several Bureau of Reclamation dams based on the flood hazard studies, and a new design standard for spillways using risk concepts was completed. He has written numerous journal articles, technical reports, book chapters, and conference proceedings on these topics, and leads training courses at the RMC. He provided technical oversight and review of the USACE guidance on using paleoflood information for flood frequency, Engineering Technical Letter No. 1100-2-4, published in September 2020.
England led the team effort and prepared the Guidelines for Determining Flood Flow Frequency–Bulletin 17C, published in 2018. This is a major revision of a nationally significant guideline (last updated in 1982) that is used for flood hazards and floodplain management. The work was done in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey, the Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Cornell University, and consultants. He led outreach efforts, making technical presentations, and conducted two EWRI short courses in 2016 and 2018 on the effort. The team conducted new research and development, publishing journal articles and technical reports, to document the new methods for the revision.
England has been active in ASCE since joining in 1989 as a student member. He is an EWRI member and has organized and chaired sessions at numerous World Water and EWRI Congresses over the past 20 years. He has participated on several ASCE Task Committees, writing and reviewing book chapters, and is a member of the Surface Water Hydrology Technical Committee. He has also given guest lectures at numerous universities and served on graduate student committees at Colorado State, University of Iowa, and University of Alabama.
Prior to joining the RMC, he worked for the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey, Colorado Climate Center, and GZA GeoEnvironmental. England was awarded the Bureau of Reclamation Engineer of the Year and nominated as one of the top 10 Federal Engineers in 2008.
He holds a B.A. (Fairfield University, 1991), B.S.E (University of Connecticut, 1991), and an M.S. (1998) and Ph.D. (2006) in hydrology and hydraulics from Colorado State University. He is a registered professional engineer in Colorado, and is a Board-Certified Diplomate, Water Resource Engineer (D.WRE).