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Staff Profile

Professor Hayley Fowler

Professor of Climate Change Impacts

  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 7113
  • Personal Website: http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/h.j.fowler/
  • Address: Water Resource Systems Engineering Group
    School of Engineering
    Cassie Building (Room 3.08)
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
    UK
Background

Hayley Fowler is Professor of Climate Change Impacts and Head of the Water Engineering Group in the School of Engineering.

Background

Hayley Fowler is Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. Her research focuses on improved physical understanding of changing precipitation extremes and providing better projections for climate adaptation. She has pioneered new downscaling techniques to bridge the gap between climate modellers and users of climate scenarios (e.g. UKCP09 Weather Generator). She specialises in the analysis of the impacts of climate change and variability on hydrological and water resource systems, examining recent trends in extremes and future projections and their impacts on flood and drought risks. She has been instrumental in the analysis of climate model outputs and development of new downscaling techniques to bridge the gap between modellers and users of climate information (e.g. UKCP09 Weather Generator). 

She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2018) and was a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow (2014-19) for her work on understanding climate change impacts on hydrological systems, extreme rainfall and flooding, following a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2011) and NERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2006-10). She led the GEWEX Hydroclimatology Panel sub-daily precipitation cross-cut and is Chief Editor of Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Climate Studies. She was a Contributing Author to Chapter 8: Water Cycle and Chapter 11: Extremes for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report WGI and Chapter 1 for the UK 3rd Climate Change Risk Assessment. She is British Hydrological Society President. She is on the Environment Agency Expert panel for Boosting Action in Surface Water: Plausible Extremes and a member of the Governance board for the Flood Hydrology Roadmap. She advises government through her roles on the Strategic Advisory Board for RESAS Science and on the BEIS Science Expert Group. She is also a member of the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme Science Review Group. Locally, she co-chairs the Newcastle Net Zero Task Force. 

She collaborates widely, particularly with NCAR, US, and UNSW, Australia, where she has held a number of visiting scientist positions. She has published more than 160 ISI-cited articles since 2000. 

Qualifications

Hayley did a BA in Geography at Cambridge University (1996) before moving to Newcastle University for an MSc in Water Resource Systems Engineering (1997) and PhD in climate change impacts on water resources (2000), staying at Newcastle for her post-doctoral training.

Career Breaks

05/2009-05/2010           Maternity leave – 12 months

05/2011-04/2012           Maternity leave – 10 months

04/2012-08/2017           Part-time (70% FTE) for childcare reasons

Roles and Responsibilities

Within Newcastle University, Hayley is the Director of NU Centre of Research Excellence in Climate and Environmental Resilience (2020-); Director of the ONE Planet NERC Doctoral Training Programme, a key Member of the University NERC demand management panel, a Member of the University Public Lectures Committee (2017-).

She has been Chief Editor of the international journal Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Climate Studies since 2017 after serving as an Associate Editor since 2013. She is also on the Editorial Board of Climate Risk Management and was an Academic Editor of PLOS ONE (2014-2022).


External Advisory Roles

BEIS Science Expert Group (2021-);

Co-Chair of Newcastle’s Net Zero Task Force;

British Hydrological Society President (2021-);

Environment Agency Expert panel for Boosting Action in Surface Water: Plausible Extremes (2020-);

Institute of Civil Engineers Flooding Community Advisory Board, UK (2021-);

Weather Risk Task Force, Network Rail (2021-);

Strategic Advisory Board for RESAS Science (2020-);

NERC PRC Panel B Chair (2020-23);

Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme Science Review Group (2020-2023);

Governance board for the UK Flood Hydrology Roadmap (2021-);

HydroJULES International Advisory Board, UK (2020-);

International Advisory Board of WIRES Water (2013-);

Management Committee of The Mount Everest Foundation (2020-);

BSI Committee B/505/21/11 Climate change, rainfall maps (2014-2018).

Memberships  

President of the British Hydrological Society (2021-2023)

Elected Member of British Hydrological Society main committee, 2004-2007
Honorary Secretary of the British Hydrological Society, 2006-2008
Member of  British Hydrological Society (1997-)
Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2018)

Member of American Geophysical Union (2005-)

Member of European Geosciences Union (2014-)

Member of Newton Prize Reviewer Panel (2017-)

Member of Newton International Fellowships Committee: Physical Sciences, Royal Society (2017-)

Member of AGU Hydrologic Sciences Award Committee (2017-)

Member of NERC Peer Review College (2010–), Core panel member of NERC Panel B (2013-), NERC Panel B Chair (2020-)

Member of UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLF) programme Peer Review College (2018-)

Member of BSI committee B/505/21/11 Climate change, rainfall maps (2014-present)

Public Engagement and Industrial Experience 

I have been engaged with the public on climate change through many lectures and fora (e.g., Café Scientifique, NE Climate Change Conference, British Science Festival, etc.). I am also frequently interviewed by media. I gave the British Science Association Joseph Lister Award Lecture (2012/2013).

I am passionate about the need for applied research to engage with societal issues and to provide solutions, or at least the path towards solutions, in a decision-focused approach. My research engages with a number of stakeholders (within the UK and internationally), regulators and Government representatives to co-develop research, much focused on improving projections of storm-related weather extremes, which delivers bespoke tools and data needed for adaptation decision-making as well as advising stakeholders on how best to use currently available climate information.


 
Research

Research Interests

Hayley has more than 20 years experience analysing the impacts of climate change and variability on hydrological systems and has published more than 160 ISI-cited articles since 2000. She has a large research group - currently 6 post-docs and 10 PhD students.

She specialises in the analysis of the impacts of climate change and variability on hydrological and water resources systems, in particular examining recent trends in extremes and future projections and their impacts on flood and drought risks. She has also been instrumental in the analysis of climate model outputs and the development of new downscaling techniques, in particular the use of probabilistic methods and weather or rainfall generators, to bridge the gap between climate modellers and users of climate information.

Her current funded research includes four main themes:

i) improving projections of extreme rainfall change by developing high-resolution regional climate models to understand convective processes;

ii) examining climatic changes in the Karakoram Himalaya and their impacts on hydrology and water resources;

iii) producing new downscaling methods to enable improved climate information services for Europe; and

iv) developing web-based tools to allow downscaling methods to be used for climate change impact assessments outside academia.

I closely collaborate with a number of leading UK academics, including Dr Elizabeth Kendon (UK Met Office), and leading international academics from the U.S. (Dr Andreas Prein, National Centre for Atmospheric Research; Dr Michael Wehner, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Australia (Dr Conrad Wasko, University of Melbourne; Dr Seth Westra, University of Adelaide), Europe (Dr Geert Lenderink, KNMI, Netherlands; Christoph Schär, ETH Zurich, Switzerland). I have been invited as a funded Visiting Professor to work with researchers at NCAR in Colorado and the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia

My funding portfolio has allowed me to set up, manage and direct a substantial research group. My current research group numbers 6 PDRAs (3 based at UKMO), and 11 graduate students. I have supervised 12 successful PhDs. I have supervised a number of previous PDRAs (9) who have gone on to research and academic positions around the world. I have also hosted visits from and supervised PhD students and Commonwealth Scholars from institutions in Europe and Australasia.

I am Director of the NERC One Planet Doctoral Training Programme (2019-2024) which focuses on climate change and transdisciplinary learning. I have also co-chaired two summer schools with a strong multi- and inter-disciplinary focus on climate change adaptation for PhD and ECR, incl. non-academic career path, in 2012 and 2014 at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado.

 Invited Presentations

Hayley receives frequent invitations to talk in panels, at public as well as professional events on the topics of extreme weather, the race to resilience, climate science and impacts and adaptation. She has been invited to speak as an expert in the area of climate adaptation and resilience to extreme weather events at a number of high-level meetings in the international community, including the Ny-Ålesund Symposium (2018) which brought together 45 global leaders from politics, science and business to discuss “Navigating Climate Risk”, as the expert scientist for the Extreme Events panel, with focused discussions around three topics: extreme events, climate scenario stress testing, and green bonds. She has given >70 invited talks in the last decade, with increasing numbers in the last few years focused on both the Race to Zero and the Race to Resilience.

Selected Invited Lectures since 2014

2014     KEYNOTE at RCM 21st Century Challenges in Regional Climate Modelling in Lund, Sweden.

2015     Expert meeting on "Weather and Climate Related Extreme Events", European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, Denmark; ETH Zurich, Switzerland; CEH Wallingford, UK;

2016     KEYNOTE at FCERM.net Annual Assembly; KEYNOTE at CliMathNet Conference 2016, Exeter;

2017     KNMI, Netherlands; Bristol University, UK; Royal Society of Edinburgh, UK; EGU Meeting, Vienna,; AGU Fall Meeting, New Orleans, USA; UNSW, Sydney, Australia; University of Wollongong, Australia; University of Adelaide, Australia;

2018     DWD, Germany; ERC Symposium, Bordeaux, France; GEWEX bi-annual conference, Canmore, Canada; Ny Alesund Symposium, Svalbard; WCRP/GDAP workshop, Germany;

2019     KEYNOTE at UK Atmospheric Science Conference, Birmingham; ETH Zurich; Royal Met Soc 1st Climate Forum, London; Society of Chemical Industry Public Lecture, London;

2020     KEYNOTE at Urban Water Interfaces International Conference, Berlin, Germany (via zoom); The Royal Society; DTU, Denmark; Newcastle Climate Summit; EGU, Vienna; Edinburgh University;

2021     Expert Panel at Met Office Climate Science Conference - Science for a resilient future; Expert Panel at Climate Services to build prosperity and inform security at Civil Service Live 2021; KEYNOTE at EVA 2021; Royal Society of Chemistry; Expert Panel at WIG Webinar: Maintaining Momentum in Climate Action post-COP26: the Race to Resilience; AGU Fall Meeting

Fellowships and other Prizes

Green Gown Awards, Benefitting Society category (2022)

Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (2021)

Best paper award – Journal of Flood Risk Management (2019)

Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2018)

Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow (2014-2019)

ERC Consolidators Award (2014-2019)

British Science Association Joseph Lister Award Lecture (2012/2013)

Philip Leverhulme Prize (2011)

NERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2006-10)

Philip Lake Prize (1996) for Best Physical Geographer, University of Cambridge, UK;


PhD Students


Completed

2004-2009: Andrew Smith: A national scale rainfall analysis and event-based model of extremes for the UK

2007-2011: Jamie Ledingham: The estimation of flood frequency curves by mapping from rainfall frequency curves (now at Mott Macdonald)

2008-2012: Mari Jones: Characterising and modelling time-varying rainfall extremes and their climatic drivers (now at NCAR, Boulder, U.S.). 

2008-2013:   Nathan Forsythe: Investigating the impact of climate change on hydro-climatological variability and water resources in the Upper Indus Basin (now Research Fellow at Newcastle University).

2007-2014:   Vesna Tripkovic: Quantifying and upscaling surface and subsurface runoff and nutrient flows under climate variability (now at Jaroslav Cerni Water Institute, Belgrade, Serbia). 

2009-2014:   Selma De Brito Guerreiro: Water Resources and Drought in International Iberian River Basins Under Future Climates (now NUAcT Research Fellow at Newcastle University).

2012-2013:     (MPhil) Sam Cawthorne-Kitching: Understanding weather patterns, climate variation and change across Northumberland National Park

2007-2017:   Alex Leathard: A Water Grid for the UK

2011-2016:   Elizabeth Lewis: A robust multi-purpose hydrological model for Great Britain (now Lecturer at Newcastle University).

2014-2018:     Doug Richardson: The predictability of UK drought using European weather patterns (Research Fellow at CSIRO, Hobart; now PDRA at UNSW, Sydney, Australia).

2015-2018:     David Pritchard: Evaluation of climate and hydrological models for impact projections in the Upper Indus Basin (now PDRA at Newcastle University). 

2014-2020:     Motasem Darwish: Regional statistical modelling of hourly extreme precipitation in the United Kingdom (now Professor at Middle East University, Amman, Jordan)

2015-2020:     Ben Smith: A methodology for assessing flood risk from multiple sources (now PDRA at Newcastle University)

2017-2022:    Tess O'Hara: Crowd Sourced Rain Data Cleaning, Validation, Visualisation, and Application (WOW) (now lecturer at Newcastle University) 

2018-2022:    Roberto Villalobos-Herrera:   Great British Rainstorms – An events-based characterization of the properties of sub-hourly to daily annual maximum producing rainfall events (now Lecturer at University of Costa Rica). 

Current (start date) 


2019:                 Anna Whitford: Sub-daily Extreme Rainfall in Europe: Future Changes and Impacts

2019:                 Farzana Ahmed Mohuya: Urban Flood Risk in Dhaka, Bangladesh

2019:                 Christoph Sauter: The relationship between droughts and drought-terminating extreme rainfall events (University of Strathclyde)

2019:                 Alem Oyarmoi: Impacts of land use change on papyrus-based wetland water resources in Uganda

2020:                 Katy Peat (50%FTE): Climate change and flood risk: mapping the route from climate projections to effective flood risk management

2021:                 Alex Seawell: Improving flood risk assessment in flashy catchments under a changing climate

2021:                 Felipe De Mendonca Fileni: Improving flood risk management in small, rapid response catchments under climate change

2021:                 Xiaobin Qiu: Using a High-Resolution Blended Precipitation Dataset to Improve Flood Risk Estimation

2021:                 James Carruthers: Using storylines, causal networks and high-resolution climate models to explore future impacts of cyclone clustering in the UK

2021:                 Brynjolfur Jonsson: Improved 21st century projections of sub-daily extreme precipitation by spatio-temporal recalibration (University of Iceland)


Reviewer

2021 –              Department of Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy Science Expert Group, UK

2021 –              Weather Advisory Task Force, Network Rail, UK, https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Network-Rail-Weather-Advisory-Task-Force-Final-Report.pdf

2021 –              HydroJULES International Advisory Board, UK

2021 –              Institute of Civil Engineers Flooding Community Advisory Board, UK

2020 –              Strategic Advisory Board for RESAS – Scottish Government, Scotland

2020 –              Environment Agency Expert panel for Boosting Action in Surface Water Extremes, UK

2020 –              Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme Science Review Group, UK

2020 –              Governance board for the UK Flood Hydrology Roadmap, UK

2019 –              Co-Chair of Newcastle’s Net Zero Task Force, UK

2018                NERC Independent Research Fellow Panel

2018 –              Associate Editor of Climate Risk Management

2018                Expert Reviewer, CH2018 (Swiss Climate Change Scenarios) Report, Switzerland

2017                Newton Prize Reviewer Panel

2017 –              Chief Editor of Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Climate Studies

2017 – 2019     AGU Hydrologic Sciences Award Committee

2016                Expert Advisor, EEA report: “Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe”

2014 –          2022     Academic Editor of PLOS ONE

Reviewer for: NSF, CFCAS, NERC, EPSRC, Irish EPA, IPCC AR4 (WGI and WGII), Swiss National Science Foundation, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, LWEC.

Reviewer for >30 journals.

 Invited External Reviewer for CH2018 (Swiss Climate Change Scenarios) Report

Expert reviewer for IPCC Working Group I 4th Assessment Report

Expert reviewer for IPCC Working Group II 4th Assessment Report

Reviewed reports for: U.S. Environment Protection Agency, LWEC Climate Change Impacts report card for Water and Biodiversity, 2012-13, 2015-16;

Chair

IMAGe Theme of the Year 2012, NCAR - Uncertainty in Climate Change Research: An Integrated Approach (budget $125K); 31 participants in summer school/workshop.

ASP Summer Colloquium 2014, NCAR, Boulder, US: Uncertainty in Climate Research: An Integrated Approach; 38 participants in summer school/workshop.

 

The award of substantial peer-reviewed funding and leadership of large research programmes 

I have been awarded £5,424,972 as PI and £15,448,639 as Co-I since 2012. This includes a highly-competitive ERC Consolidators Grant (2014-20). My funding portfolio since 2012 includes five Research Council awards totalling ~£3M as PI, and two British Council projects as PI. I have created and led five national or international multi-institutional Research Council funded projects of >£500K since 2012. The management of these large projects has required strong leadership and an ability to prioritise objectives and to manage teams at different institutions to successfully produce the required project deliverables.

Teaching

Teaching

Module Leader 

CEG8514: Climate Change: Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation 

Contributions to:

CEG2001: Design of Sustainable Engineering Systems 2

CEG8524: Water Management: Issues and Challenges 

CEG8526: Hydrosystems Modelling and Management


External Teaching Roles

External Evaluator on Durham University Earth Sciences Department Progression Committee (2017-2020);

NERC E4 DTP External Advisory Panel, Edinburgh University (2020-);

External Examiner for MSc in Water Science Policy and Management, Oxford University (2020-2022);

External Specialist Report (BSc Climate Science), Durham University (2020).


Publications