The Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research (CESER) is motivated by the recognition that management of the physical infrastructure systems that sustain society must in future be based upon analysis, at an unprecedented range of spatial and temporal scales, of interacting technological, human and natural systems. To realise this vision requires the new generation of techniques, tools and system-scale applications that we are advancing.
The urgent need for adaptation to climate change has now been recognised at the highest level of government. Engineers have a central role in developing solutions to this complex systems problem. However, the models, techniques and tools that are required to enable management of complex coupled technological, human and natural systems do not yet exist. Decisions are being made without sufficient understanding of long term changes, impacts, interactions and uncertainties. The implications for sustainability are critical.
Building upon a unique capacity for analysis of long term change and climate impacts in water and infrastructure systems, CESER is dedicated to understanding and modelling of processes of change within coupled technological, human and natural systems. We use our knowledge to inform the sustainable management of these complex systems, through development of data acquisition, simulation, decision analysis and visualisation tools and techniques to underpin the sustainable management of infrastructure systems.
CESER was founded in June 2009 as a University Research Centre in Newcastle University. The Centre is supported by prestigious Platform Grant funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. This funding will underpin our Research Programme providing opportunities to integrate our portfolio of research projects and grow our research team.
CESER is hosted in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and is central to the School’s research strategy, which is founded upon cutting edge research in the fields of Earth Systems Science, Engineering and Management. However, CESER’s mission is a highly inter-disciplinary endeavour and, embracing academic input from across Newcastle University. We collaborate widely in the UK and internationally.
Since 2006 Newcastle University has been a core partner in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and the CESER mission and activities intersect closely with those of the Tyndall Centre in Newcastle University, in particular in the field of climate impacts and adaptation studies.