Author: Louise Slater

Seasonal Forecasting Workshop (Jan 2018)

~ Louise Slater

Our two-day workshop in Loughborough on Seasonal Forecasting of Water Resources – Meeting User Needs (24-25 January) was attended by 43 participants from a diverse range of organisations (CEH, ECMWF, EA, SEPA, NRW, NCAS, National Farmers’ Union, Canal & River Trust, SMHI, Civil Protection Agency), water agencies/ consultancies (Anglian Water Services, Scottish Water, CH2M, South West Water Ltd), and universities (Maynooth, Reading, Coventry, Loughborough, Colima, Newcastle, West of England, WSL), with delegates from six countries (UK, Ireland, Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden). The event was co-sponsored by the RCUK Drought Programme, Water@Loughborough, Water@Reading, and the British Hydrological Society.

We are planning to write a summary of the meeting for the British Hydrological Society’s newsletter Circulation, a Letter to NERC, and an opinion paper.

For more pictures of the event, please see the #SeasonalForecasting hashtag on Twitter!

oznor

 

First NERC grant (Dec 2017)

~ Louise Slater

We have just heard that our NERC/ESRC/DFID proposal on ‘Financial planning for natural disasters: the case of flood risk in Central Java’ was successful.

We will soon be advertising a two-year senior Research Associate (Postdoctoral) position to work on Flood risk and Financial planning (with me), starting early in 2018. Please do get in touch if you are interested. Advanced programming (R or Python) and GIS skills strongly desirable!

Seasonal Forecasting Workshop (January 2018)

~ Louise Slater ~ Leave a comment

A workshop on ‘Seasonal forecasting: Meeting User Needs’ is being held on 24th-25th January 2018 at Loughborough University (UK), co-sponsored by the British Hydrological Society, the RCUK Drought and Water Scarcity Programme, Water @ Loughborough, and Water @ Reading.

The aim of this workshop is to focus on the seasonal forecast needs of users and practitioners, and to identify ways of improving the dissemination, uptake and operationalisation of seasonal forecasts by the water and agricultural sectors.

water-treatment_2

Confirmed speakers include:

  • The EFAS seasonal forecasting system (Louise Arnal, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts)
  • Advancing the science behind operational seasonal forecasting: the Hydrological Outlook UK (Jamie Hannaford, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology)
  • Seasonal forecasting for effective water management on the canal network (David Mould, Canal & River Trust)
  • Seasonal weather forecasts and British farming (Ceris Jones, National Farmers’ Union)
  • The Global Flood Awareness System (Rebecca Emerton, Water @ Reading University)
  • Ensemble projections, scenarios and forecasts: operational assessment of water resources prospects (Richard Davis and Karen James, Environment Agency)
  • Improving seasonal drought forecasting for user-decision making: The IMPETUS, EdGE and ENDOWS projects (Shaun Harrigan, Simon Parry, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology)

Abstract submission: Abstracts for oral and poster presentations are welcomed. Please send your abstract (up to 300 words) including title, authors and affiliations to SeasonalForecasting@lboro.ac.uk by Friday 15th December 2017.

For more information, please email: SeasonalForecasting@lboro.ac.uk

Further details/registration: https://www.ice.org.uk/events/seasonal-forecasting-meeting-user-needs

Two NERC-funded PhD positions

~ Louise Slater ~ Leave a comment

Two new NERC-funded PhD positions starting in 2018 are available with me and colleagues at Loughborough University, as part of the CENTA Doctoral Training Programme.

Applications for 2018 entry are now live. Further details on how to apply can be found here. Please see the links above for further details. The application deadline is 22 January 2018.

New paper: Weighting of NMME temperature and precipitation forecasts across Europe

~ Louise Slater ~ Leave a comment

Our paper titled ‘Weighting of NMME temperature and precipitation forecasts across Europe‘ has just been accepted in Journal of Hydrology

It is open-access here until Sept 12th!JHydrol

Slater, L.J., Villarini, G., Bradley, A.A. (2017) Weighting of NMME temperature and precipitation forecasts across Europe, Journal of Hydrology,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.07.029

New paper: statistical dynamical forecasting of seasonal streamflow in an agricultural watershed

~ Louise Slater ~ Leave a comment

Our paper on dynamical statistical forecasting of seasonal streamflow has just been published in Climate Dynamics!

See the paper here and the associated EGU poster here.Raccoon

Slater, L.J., Villarini, G., Bradley, A., Vecchi G. (in press) A dynamical statistical framework for seasonal streamflow forecasting in an agricultural watershed,  Climate Dynamics. doi:10.1007/s00382-017-3794-7

Upcoming seminars

~ Louise Slater

See here for an updated list of seminars (Hull, Maynooth, New Orleans, Durham..)

  • On Monday 22nd May we are hosting a Water Research Day at Loughborough University, as part of the Water@Lboro initiative.
  • On Wednesday 21st June I will be visiting the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) to talk about global statistical forecasting
  • On Thursday 16th November I will be visiting Oxford to give a talk on Fluvial geomorphology and flood risk management for Oxford Water Network‘s Michaelmas term seminar series

Hello and welcome!

~ Louise Slater

Our research group investigates changes in climatic and water-related extremes (especially floods, heat waves, precipitation, drought, and other extremes), fluvial systems (fluvial geomorphology) and water resources.

We develop computational approaches (data-driven, Earth observation, and ensemble-based methods) to understand how changes in climate, land cover and society affect climatic and water-related extremes over daily to multidecadal timescales. 

On these webpages you will find updates on our current research (below), publications, outreach activities, talks/conferences, and some information about the group members and about me. If you are interested in undertaking doctoral or post-doctoral research in any of the above areas, please do check guidance here and get in touch!

EGU 2017

~ Louise Slater

I’m delighted to have obtained funding from the British Hydrological Society to give two talks at the European Geosciences Union in Vienna in April:

  • Slater, L.J.. An early career researcher’s perspective on presenting flood risk research to the media (solicited). PICO on Wednesday, 26 Apr 2017 at 13:46 in this session (HS1.10 How my water research made the news, by invitation only).
  • Slater, L.J. and Villarini, G. Statistical-dynamical long-range seasonal forecasting of streamflow with the North-American Multi Model Ensemble (NMME). Oral on Friday, 28 Apr 2017 at 11:30 in this session (HS4.6/CL3.02;From sub-seasonal forecasting to climate projections: predicting hydrologic extremes and servicing water managers).