Staff Profile

Introduction

A lecture in data-centric engineering my work across research and teaching focuses on the use of data, in particular spatial data, within engineering disciplines, with a strong focus on civil engineering. My research interests broadly span climate change impacts on infrastructure, complex networks, spatial data management, and integrated assessment frameworks. I sit within the Geospatial Engineering group, School of Engineering, where I completed a PhD in 2017 and worked as a researcher before being appointed to my current position.

Supervision (PhD)

• Dea Bestari - TBC
• Nadia Sikfa - Modelling of tailings dam failures
• Chris Larkin - The future of active travel networks
• Qianqian Li (Sheffield Unviersity) - Resilience of global networks to extreme climate change hazards
• Mingyu Zhu - Digital twin concepts to understand urban dynamics and provide real-time situational awareness

Areas of expertise

• Geospatial data management
• Infrastructure network analysis
• Integrated assessment frameworks
• Network complexity
• Data visualisation
• GIS

External roles

GISRUK conference & seminar series national Chair - https://gisruk.org/

DAFNI (Data Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure) Champion

Links

Git Hub

Google scholar

Research interests in GIS, digital solutions and geospatial data science for exploring the impact of climate change, with a focus on how we use data and modelling techniques to help address related challenges. Experience in particular in the resilience of infrastructure networks to climate hazards, network complexity science, integrated assessment frameworks and digital twins.

Recent and ongoing projects:

• MACC Hub (Co-Investigator) - Co-Investigator on the Maximising Adaptation for Climate Change hub
• OpenCLIM (Co-Investigator) - website - Developing an open framework for assessing the impact and adaptation scenarios across multiple sectors in the UK within an integrated assessment framework
• NERC Digital Solutions Hub (Co-Investigator) - website - How to open up many of the digital data assets held by NERC to make them more accessible and useable to the wider research community
• UKCR - UK Climate Resilience Programme (Principal Investigator) - Assessing the success of the programme with regard to the development of decision support tools within the domain of climate resilience
• FloodPrepared - Developing real time rainfall and flood modelling platform for urban areas to improve resilience to short duration intense rainfall events

My teaching is focused on developing digital skills across a number of courses for undergraduate and post-graduate students. This includes data handling and management, spatial data, GIS, fundamentals of programming, data science, visualisation and emerging digital tools such as BIM and digital twins.

I currently lead 3 modules (1 undergraduate, 2 postgraduate), while contributing to many others across geospatial degrees and civil engineering degrees.

I also undertake student supervision for both undergraduate and post-graduate projects, as well as PhD supervision and always happy to support projects where possible.

Primary teaching

• CEG3005 - The data-centric urban environment
• CEG3701 - GIS Fieldcourse
• CEG3718 - BIM and City Modelling
• CEG3719 - Geospatial Data, Analytics and AI
• CEG8006 - Digital Engineering and Analytics
• CEG8419 - Modelling and Analysis of Travel and Transport Behavior
• CEG8705 - Geographic Information Systems
• ENG1008 - Introduction to Programming
• Supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate students

• Articles

  • Kennedy-Asser AT, Andrews OD, Montgomery J, Jenkins KL, Smith BAH, Lewis E, Birkinshaw SJ, He H, Pywell RF, Brown MJ, Redhead JW, Warren R, Robson C, Smith AJP, Nicholls RJ, Mullan D, McGuire R. The role of local knowledge in enhancing climate change risk assessments in rural Northern Ireland. Climate Risk Management 2025, 48, 100702.
  • Butters O, Robson C, McClean F, Glenis V, Virgo J, Ford A, Iliadis C, Dawson R. An open framework for analysing future flood risk in urban areas. Environmental Modelling and Software 2025, 185, 106302.
  • Wolf K, Dawson RJ, Mills JP, Blythe P, Robson C, Morley J. Assessing the impact of heavy rainfall on the Newcastle upon Tyne transport network using a geospatial data infrastructure. Resilient Cities and Structures 2023, 2(2), 24-41.
  • Li Q, Punzo G, Robson C, Arbabi H, Mayfield M. A Systematic Approach to Climate Resilience Assessment of Infrastructure Networks. IEEE Systems Journal 2023, 18(1), 24-35.
  • Jenkins K, Ford A, Robson C, Nicholls R. Identifying adaptation ‘on the ground’: Development of a UK adaptation Inventory. Climate Risk Management 2022, 36, 100430.
  • Peppa MV, Komar T, Xiao W, James P, Robson C, Xing J, Barr S. Towards an End-to-End Framework of CCTV-Based Urban Traffic Volume Detection and Prediction. Sensors 2021, 21(2), 629.
  • Robson C, Barr S, Ford A, James P. The structure and behaviour of hierarchical infrastructure networks. Applied Network Science 2021, 6(1), 65.
  • Pregnolato M, Ford A, Robson C, Glenis V, Barr S, Dawson RJ. Assessing urban strategies for reducing the impacts of extreme weather on infrastructure networks. Royal Society Open Science 2016, 3(5), 160023.

• Book Chapters

  • Perks R, Robson C, Arnell N, Cooper J, Dawkins L, Fuller E, Kennedy-Asser A, Nicholls R, Ramsey Vi. What Insights Can the Programme Share on Developing Decision Support Tools?. In: Dessai, S; Lonsdale, K; Lowe, J; Harcourt, R, ed. Quantifying Climate Risk and Building Resilience in the UK. Springer International Publishing, 2024, pp.111--127.
  • Barr S, Alderson D, Ives MC, Robson C. Database, simulaation modelling and visualisation for national infrastructure. In: Hall, Jim W.; Tran, Martino; Hickford, Adrian J.; Nicholls, Robert J, ed. The Future of National Infrastructure: A System-of-Systems Approach. Cambridge University Press, 2016.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Barr SL, Johnson S, Ming X, Peppa M, Dong N, Wen Z, Robson C, Smith L, James P, Wilkinson D, Heaps S, Laing Q, Xiao W, Dawson R, Ranjan R. FLOOD-PREPARED: A NOWCASTING SYSTEM for REAL-TIME IMPACT ADAPTION to SURFACE WATER FLOODING in CITIES. In: 5th International Conference on Smart Data and Smart Cities. 2020, Nice, France: Copernicus GmbH.
  • Schoenmakers R, Ives M, Robson C, Nagella S, Fowler R, Chorlton S, Yang E, Hall JW. Improving performance and scalability of NISMOD: National Infrastructure Systems Model. In: Third Conference of Research Software Engineers. 2018, Birmingham.
  • Barr SL, Robson C, Pregnolato M, Ji Q. NISMOD-DB++: A next generation spatiotemporal database framework for infrastructure systems analytics and modelling. In: ISNGI. 2017. In Preparation.
  • Ives MC, Silberman A, Letti B, Large J, Blainey S, Choundry M, Baruah P, Robson C, Usher W, Hall JW. Modelling future scenarios of infrastructure demand for the UK’s National Infrastructure Assessment. In: International Symposia for Next Generation Infrastructure. 2017, London, UK.
  • Robson C, Barr SL, James P, Ford A. A framework for modelling the impact of spatial hazards on critical infrastructure networks. In: GISRUK. 2017, Manchester, UK.
  • Robson C, Barr S, James P, Ford A. Spatially modelling dependent infrastructure networks. In: GISRUK. 2015, Leeds.
  • Harris N, Robson C, Barr SL, James P. Real time coupled network failure modelling and visualisation. In: GISRUK. 2015, Leeds, UK.
  • Alderson D, Barr SL, Holderness T, Robson C, Ford A, Kennedy-Walker R. A geospatial relational database schema for interdependent network analysis and modelling. In: 23rd GIS Research UK (GISRUK). 2015, Leeds, UK.
  • Robson C, Barr S, James P, Ford A. Resilience of hierarchical critical infrastructure networks. In: International Symposium for Next Generation Infrastructure. 2014, Vienna, Austria.
  • Barr SL, Alderson D, Robson C, Otto A, Hall J, Thacker S, Pant R. A National Scale Infrastructure Database and Modelling Environment for the UK. In: International Symposium for Next Generation Infrastructure. 2013, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia.
  • Barr SL, Holderness T, Alderson D, Robson C, Ford A. An open source relational database schema and system for the analysis of large scale spatially interdependent infrastructure networks. In: 4th Open Source GIS Conference - OSGIS 2012. 2012, Nottingham: Nottingham Geospatial Institute, University of Nottingham.

• Note

  • Smith AJP, Minns A, Nicholls RJ, Beswick A, Jenkins K, Avrutin S, Robson C. Reflections on delivering place-based climate risk data in support of local adaptation decisions. Climate Risk Management 2025, 48, 100701.