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Hydrological hazards across timescales

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University of Bristol – Met Office Academic Partnership Meeting 

From droughts and floods to water quality and water resource management, researchers at the University of Bristol and the Met Office are world-leaders in climate and hydrological research. Building on the new academic partnership between Bristol and the Met Office, the goal of this meeting was to foster new collaborations and strengthen existing partnerships between Bristol and the Met Office on the topic of weather, climate and hydrology. 

In total, we had 29 attendees attend the workshop, with 10 from the Met Office, 17 from the University of Bristol and 2 from Fathom including weather and climate scientists, catchment hydrologists and flood modellers at a wide range of career stages. 

 

The meeting explored two key themes, the first half of the meeting focused on ‘Exploiting convection permitting weather and climate models for flood and drought prediction’, while the second half focused on ‘Quantifying uncertainty in hydrological projections’. For each theme, there were two short plenary talks that highlighted existing research across the Met Office and University of Bristol and then a presentation focused on an exciting piece of research covering topics on exploiting convection permitting models for flood and drought prediction (Lizzie Kendon) and towards large ensembles of km-scale precipitation simulations using AI (Peter Watson and Henry Addison).  We also had eight lighting talks on topics ranging from tropical cyclones to pan-tropics convection-permitting climate simulations to compound wind and flood risk.  

 

Alongside the talks, there was time for attendees to discuss ideas and opportunities focused around five key discussion topics; uncertainty estimation, compound events and multi-hazard coupling, evaluation of weather and climate driving information for hydrology, exploiting higher resolution capabilities for hydrology and from hydrological predictions to ‘services’. 

 

Overall, the meeting was a success and we appreciated an in person meeting fuelled by coffee, cake and cheese! Tangible outputs from the day included contributions on a NERC proposal, making new connections, ideas for future collaborations, sharing of data and methodologies and the foundations for a collaborative climate and hydrology community.  

 

Further details from the meeting can be requested from Gemma Coxon (gemma.coxon@bristol.ac.uk). 

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