After the floods in September, new water engineering structures are needed. There seems to be no doubt about it. At successive construction congresses the opinion is repeated that there is a shortage of civil engineers in Poland. The shortage of hydraulic engineers is felt most acutely. And perhaps not so much in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality. Modern digital technologies, especially projects in the BIM methodology, require qualifications and experience. Digital hydraulic engineers are extremely scarce in Poland, and young people are not eager to choose this difficult, demanding and responsible field of study and profession.
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Why do students avoid hydraulic engineering?
Water engineering is one of the more demanding fields of study. Young engineers often choose other, more popular engineering fields such as general construction, computer science or energy. Working in water engineering is associated with a lot of responsibility, as well as the need to work in difficult field conditions.
What kind of job can a graduate count on? As far as long term investment in hydraulic engineering infrastructure are concerned, successive governments have avoided the subject, with the exception of projects such as the Vistula Spit Crossing.
The policy of preferring the lowest price in public tenders is also not conducive to employing ‘digital’ hydraulic engineers, as knowledge and skills have to be paid for.
Digitization in hydraulic engineering
When HydroBIM was founded, Tomasz Rajpold set himself the goal of building an innovative company focused on ensuring quality in hydraulic engineering design through the use of modern technology.
Five years ago, BIM in hydraulic engineering bordered on science fiction in Poland. However, the water engineering industry, like other branches, is changing. More and more companies appreciate the difference made by using digital tools such as BIM to accurately plan, model and manage projects.
The problem is, that there are very few such hydraulic engineers who are comfortable with modern technologies in Poland.
Young engineers who make it to HydroBIM have the chance to learn from the best. The HydroBIM team are the few experts in Poland who are not only well versed in digital tools, but also able to use them in practice. For young engineers, this is a unique opportunity to gain unique skills that set them apart in the job market. We check whether this is indeed the case.
What do the young water engineers say about working in HydroBIM?
For Michal and Wiktor, this is their first full-time job. They joined the HydroBIM team while still at university. They immediately jumped into very deep water, as they worked on modelling the Digital Twin of the Port of Gdynia, an innovative project on at least a European scale. They used the experience in their master’s thesis. How do they evaluate the work in HydroBIM?
Wiktor: after completing the project in Gdynia, I was hoping to make more use of the things I learned under and during the Digital Twin. I thought there would be more Revit, point clouds and working on platforms such as BIM360. On the other hand, in terms of development, there is something to learn and develop somehow in every subject. And yes, creating documents such as Technical Specifications is not my favourite job, but it may come in handy at some point. For example, I jumped from Revit back into Civil and once again had the opportunity to get to know it better.
Instead of a digital twin, I work on CPK projects, where there can always be a problem to solve. I think there’s a lot to learn, but so far I’ve been most able to develop skills in modelling and working on projects.
Michal: Before joining the HydroBIM team, I worked periodically as an assistant on all kinds of structural projects at a local design office. The change of industry from structural to hydraulic engineering and the working mode from stationary to remote proved to be quite a challenge – especially in the beginning. However, it has paid off in terms of increasing my independence.
Currently, I am involved in modelling – this is my main role. I make sure that our outputs conform to project standards. I also make sure that our models contain the required non-geometric data, such as material type or IFC classification.
Modelling is not easy, as the software does not always take into account all the scenarios we encounter. So I have to creatively ‘bend’ the software to get the desired effect, especially with unusual situations that would be acceptable in 2D, but require more precision in 3D. This is well demonstrated on the CPK tasks in which we are involved. Working on such extensive projects requires me to collaborate with other trades – in the 3D model you can see collisions right away, so you have to correct this quickly and efficiently.
As everyone in our team specializes in a slightly different field, I try to support with my modelling experience – if someone has a problem with the software, I’m happy to help find a solution.
For Dominika, HydroBIM is another employer. This makes her opinion all the more interesting.
In previous companies, I had the impression that my work was not important. I had the proverbial ‘three lines crossed’ in a project to do, or printing out designs, or some copy-paste text.
In HydroBIM I get a huge variety of tasks. I’m glad, because I think it develops me a lot. Of course, maybe after a while I will start to miss something, but for now there is no routine. I’m doing all sorts of things that I simply couldn’t do at my previous jobs, so for sure there is development. I feel satisfaction when bosses Pawel or Tomasz counts with my opinion. No one is standing over my head, my work is appreciated and respected, that’s important to me.
Are the new water engineering structures plans an opportunity for young engineers?
The chances of more applicants returning to study hydraulic engineering are closely linked to new investments in water engineering structures. Unfortunately, despite the challenges of protecting against floods or droughts, so far there are no clear signs to suggest that an investment boom in water engineering is coming.
Will the recent flood disaster of 2024 be a turning point? This painful experience showed how much Poland lacks a comprehensive water management strategy. Will it open the eyes of decision-makers? If project funding comes in, there is a chance that hydro engineering will get a new lease of life.
Do you need modern hydro engineers for your project? At HydroBIM, we offer the outsourcing of engineers. Contact us and get experts ready to work!
Find out the details of our water engineering offer.
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