PhD Title: "Simulating the reach-scale floodplain wetting and drying processes for a reach of the Amazon river, Brazil"
Supervisors: Prof. Paul Bates, Dr. Guy Schumann
Funding: NERC Studentship
In this study the LISFLOOD-FP hydro-dynamic model will be used to simulate floodplain inundation processes for a 300 x 200 km reach of the Amazon river located upstream of Manaus. Results from the model will be compared to datasets derived from satellite missions and fieldwork to assess their validity. Changes to the topographic and hydrologic representation of the study site within the model will then be instigated to improve its accuracy. Results from this study will demonstrate how water from the Amazon river interacts with its floodplain which is crucial in understanding the role of Amazon river in the global carbon cycle and the impacts of anthropogenic intervention within the basin.
PhD Title: "National Scale Hydrological Modelling for benchmarking and for quantifying regional differences in catchment processes within an uncertainty framework"
Supervisors: Dr. Jim Freer, Dr. Thorsten Wagener (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Penn State)
Funding: NERC Studentship
This research aims to investigate multiple characteristics of catchment behaviour by applying competing hypotheses of hydrological behaviour within an uncertainty framework. Data from over 800 catchments in the UK and additional high resolution datasets will be used in conjunction with flexible modelling techniques in an effort to explore catchment similarities and to benchmark catchment processes. This will enable us to improve our understanding of model structure identification, catchment classification and prediction in ungauged basins.
PhD Title: "Tracking water level changes of the Amazon basin with space-borne remote sensing and integration with large scale hydrodynamic modelling"
Supervisors: Dr Guy Schumann, Prof. Jonathan Bamber
Funding: NERC Studentship
This research aims to compare the accuracy of current space-borne water level data sets and investigate the associated uncertainties. These data will be integrated with numerical modelling via data assimilation techniques with the aim of improving large scale hydrodynamic model simulations. This will be assessed to find whether enhanced flow simulation and improved representations of water level dynamics from space can help advance hydrologic understanding.
PhD Title: "Understanding Pesticide Dynamics at the Catchment Scale for Managing Drinking Water Reservoirs"
Supervisors: Dr. Katerina Michaelides
Funding: NERC CASE Award with Wessex Water
Transport of pesticides in runoff and subsurface flow during rainfall events poses a significant concern for water quality with adverse effects on drinking water and aquatic life which may lead to serious and long-lasting ecotoxicological effects. My study investigates spatial patterns of pesticide transport in a lowland agricultural catchment (17km2) in Somerset upstream of a drinking-water reservoir. Soil, sediment and water samples from slopes, rivers and the reservoir are analysed for a number of major pesticides to determine the relative importance of dissolved, sediment-bound and soil bound pesticide dynamics seasonally and during individual storm events.
PhD Title: "Likely coastal inundation risks in the UK within the next 100 years"
Supervisors: Prof. Paul Bates, Dr Kevin Horsburgh
Funding: Flood Risk Management Research Consortium
This research aims to investigate the coastal inundation risks in a future climate using the latest estimates of extreme water-level predictions from the coupled HadRM3 regional circulation model and resolution adjusted POL storm surge model. This will combine the latest regional mean sea-level rise, rainfall and storm surge estimates using a probabilistic approach which will produce a likely inundation extent map of use to planners, policy makers, and engineers.
PhD Title: "Experimental investigations of the effects of soil erosion and deposition on soil organic matter dynamics"
Supervisors: Dr Katerina Michaelides, Prof. Richard Evershed (School of Chemistry, Bristol), Dr David Chadwick (CASE Partner, IGER)
Funding: NERC Case Award with IGER
This research aims to investigate the interactions between soil organic matter (SOM) and erosion and deposition processes. SOM plays a very important role in providing soil with structure and controlling its fertility. In an environment such as the UK, where rates of erosion are set to increase, it is important to quantify the effects of hydrological processes, erosion and deposition on SOM dynamics. So far investigations of sediment-bound SOM dynamics have been limited and currently there are conflicting opinions among scientists as to the fate of organic carbon due to soil erosion processes.
PhD Title: "The Response of Himalayan Glaciers to Climate Change and its Hydrological Impact"
Supervisors: Prof. Jonathan Bamber, Prof. Paul Valdes, Dr. Jim Freer
Funding: University of Bristol Postgraduate Research Scholarship
The aim of this project is to evaluate the potential impact of different climate change scenarios on the hydrological regimes of catchments in the Himalayas which have a significant glacial meltwater input from their glaciated headwaters. An estimated 1.4billion people rely on rivers fed by snow and glacier runoff from the Himalayas and at present there is a lack of detailed understanding of past and potential future changes to the glaciers and resultant meltwater production in the region.
PhD Title: "Uncertainty in future flood risk for insurance markets"
Supervisors: Prof. Paul Bates, Dr. Jim Freer, Dr. Timothy Fewtrell (Willis Research Network), Dr. Hannah Cloke (King's College London)
Funding: NERC Case Award with Willis Research Network
Catastrophe models are multi-level model systems used by industry to estimate future losses due to catastrophic events such as severe floods. They are typically composed of four modules: a stochastic event module, a hazard module, a vulnerability module and a financial module. In the case of flood risk these correspond to a stochastic rainfall model, a hydrological/hydraulic model, a depth-damage model and a damage-cost model. As industry models are commercial and closed, an open academic test version needs to be constructed that will allow the system to be examined. This thesis aims to build such a model and use it to test the uncertainty contributed by each module to the final estimate of financial loss in the case of severe floods.
PhD Title: "Projecting Future Flood Risk: Highlighting the Impacts on High Value Buildings"
Supervisors: Prof. Paul Bates, Dr. Jim Freer
Funding: AHRC Studentship, part of PARNASSUS project
This PhD will for the first time take climate model projections down to the building scale, outlining the potential risks posed to historical buildings by flooding under future climate change. This will be achieved by investigating the uncertainties associated with current methods of flood risk estimation from climate projections, quantifying these uncertainties and then driving them through hydrological and hydraulic models.
PhD Title: "Use of historical data to constrain future coastal flood risk analyses"
Supervisors: Prof. Paul Bates, Prof. Robert Mayhew
Funding: NERC/SERC Interdisciplinary Research Studentship
The Somerset Levels have a long history of inundation from the sea; the proposed study aims to research the archival record and to use historic data with the LISFLOOD-FP inundation model to reconstruct the major sea floods that have affected the Somerset and North Somerset coast over the last 400 years. Further work will aim to construct plausible future flood risk scenarios for this coastal belt.
PhD Title: "New data collection techniques for constraining uncertainty in inundation models"
Supervisors: Prof. Paul Bates, Dr. Giuliano Di Baldassarre (UNESCO - Institute for Water Education)
Funding: Great Western Research Case Award with the Environment Agency
The aim of this research is to use data from GridStix sensors to reduce uncertainty in model predictions. Several GridStix sensors have been placed in the channel and on the floodplain around the confluence of the Dee and Alun rivers in North Wales to record water surface elevation during high flow events. The data will be used in the calibration and validation process of a number of flood inundation models to improve our understanding of the uncertainties involved.
PhD Title: "Modeling the impacts of climate change on river morphology and the implication of morphological change on flood risk"
Supervisors: Dr. Jim Freer, Prof. Paul Bates
Funding: University of Bristol Postgraduate Research Scholarship
The aim of this study is to investigate the potential role of river morphology, via its influence on discharge and sediment supply, in affecting flood inundation extent and depth predictions within the context of climate change. Cockermouth is chosen as the study site as it suffered badly in a nation-wide flood in November 2009 and it experienced morphological changes during the flood event in which gravel in river channel were transported and deposited on floodplain. Using a sediment transport model (CAESAR) and a hydraulic model (LISFLOOD-FP), the focus is to quantify the uncertainty associated with coupling these models. This uncertainty results from the propagation through the models of errors in input data, model structure, and output reliability and will be assessed by adopting a tiered uncertainty analysis framework.