Professor Jim Freer - inaugural lecture
Professor of Hydrology
Tuesday 14 May 2013 at 6 pm
Peel Lecture Theatre, School of Geographical Sciences, University Road, BS8 1SS
If you require additional support for any of the lectures, e.g. wheelchair access or sign language interpretation, please contact Nicola Fry at the earliest opportunity and we will endeavour to meet your request.
An Inexact Science: Hydrology, uncertainty and understanding real world systems
Hydrology, like many natural sciences, is an inexact science. Meaning we do not have perfect knowledge or understanding about hydrological behaviour at various scales, especially those scales that are most useful, such as the catchment scale. This should have implications for the way we treat the limited, sparse and uncertain data and hence how we confront a computer model with such data when trying to formalise our understanding. Professor Freer will reflect on the challenges of using imperfect data and models to predict and understand hydrological systems and what therefore might be pragmatic solutions and appropriate frameworks when making predictions. This talk will look back at his career, and how an earth he got to this point, using some of the hydrological applications that he has dealt with. Professor Freer might even say something about his future plans, but this is far from certain...