David Prandle is currently a Consultant Engineer and a Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool. He graduated as a Civil Engineer from the University of Liverpool and studied the propagation of a tidal bore in the River Hooghly for his Ph.D. at the University of Manchester. He worked for 5 years as a Consultant to Canada's National Research Council, modeling the St Lawrence and Fraser Rivers. He was then recruited to the UK's Natural Environment Research Council's Bidston Observatory to design the operational software for controlling the Thames Flood Barrier. He has subsequently carried out observational, modeling and theoretical studies of tide and storm propagation, tidal energy extraction, circulation and mixing, temperatures and water quality in shelf seas and their coastal margins.