Born in Glasgow, Fleming grew up in a house in Knightswood, Glasgow near to the Forth and Clyde Canal. His childhood spent playing on the canal may have inspired his career as a water engineer. Fleming studied for a Bachelor of Science degree at the Royal Technical College, just as it was transitioning into the University of Strathclyde. He found that structural engineering was too straightforward and preferred to focus on what he considered the more complex, and then less well researched, challenges of hydrology. Fleming investigated the impact that droughts and floods have on soil erosion with a particular focus on the River Clyde. He was granted a Doctor of Philosophy degree which was, unusually, split between Strathclyde and Stanford University in California. His PhD investigated the movements of water and sediment in the Clyde system. After this he returned to Strathclyde as a professor of civil engineering. Fleming has authored or co-authored more than 200 academic publications and 15 books. He has also produced four video documentaries. Fleming is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is also a Chartered Environmentalist. Fleming was elected president of the ICE for the November 1999 to November 2000 session. One of his acts as president was to reinstate a traditional 3-yearly conference between the ICE and the ASCE. He co-authored a 2001 ICE report into the Autumn 2000 western Europe floods which recommended a doubling of expenditure on flood defences, the training of more river engineers and better investment in flood prediction. Fleming stated that at that time flood defence works were viewed as "a second class operation". He was later asked by deputy prime ministerJohn Prescott to chair a commission into the effects of the flooding. Fleming's commission recommended the establishment of a separate body for flooding, taking responsibilities from the Environment Agency which had to deal with the conflicting interests of flood protection, habitat protection and management of development. He later reiterated the recommendations to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. On 23 May 2001 Fleming was elected a fellow of the Transport Research Foundation at which point he was deputy dean of engineering at the University of Birmingham. Fleming served as chairman of the Association of Environmental and Ecological Clerks of Works from its formation until January 2018.
Career in industry
Fleming was involved in the planning of the Glasgow Garden Festival and the programme of regeneration that followed it. His academic work had shown that dredgings from the River Clyde contained valuable nutrients washed down from upstream agricultural land and, once treated to remove heavy metals, could be re-used as opposed to being discarded as previous. Fleming generated topsoil for the garden festival this way and subsequently licensed the technology used to a company that sold the material under the brand name ClydeSoil. Fleming also made bricks from the material and investigated whether it could be applied to rivers in Hong Kong and Egypt. He also looked at the possibility of making soil from other waste materials such as quarry dust, forestry waste, paper mill sludge, fish farming by-products and sewage sludge. In addition Fleming developed a surfacing material for roads and sports fields made from a combination of waste, tar, asphalt, tyre rubber and aggregate. At around the time of the festival Fleming established the Landlab, a research unit that studies the self-renewing properties of soil. In 1995 he founded the EnviroCentre engineering consultancy, specialising in environmental matters as he perceived that there was a shortage of companies in that field. It was partially funded by the Glasgow Development Agency and projects included Glasgow Harbour and the Kirkintilloch Link Road. The company, of which Fleming is currently the chairman, now works largely in the energy sector.
Personal life
Fleming has lived in Scotland for most of his life. He farms land in Argyll where he holidayed as a child. His son, Duar Fleming, is managing director of EnviroCentre. He has curated an exhibition of the history of civil engineering at a Scottish museum.
