Prof Richard J Harding

Acting Director, Biogeochemistry Programme

Prof Harding is Acting Director of CEH's Biogeochemistry Programme, which aims to improve knowledge of biogeochemical cycles and their role in ecosystem functions and services.

Prior to this, he led a research group which specialises in understanding land surface processes and incorporating this understanding into models for resource assessment and climate change studies.

Prof Harding is a Principal Investigator on a number of EU and NERC-funded projects making measurements and modelling studies in Europe, the Arctic and Africa.

He also leads the EU-funded WATCH Integrated Programme - designed to better describe the 20th and 21st century Global Water Cycle.

Research interests

Prof Harding has more than 30 years' experience in the measurement and modelling of water energy and carbon. He has made soil moisture, meteorological and evaporation measurements in India, Africa, North America and Europe. In recent years he has concentrated on studies measuring and modelling fluxes from arctic land surfaces, particularly snow.

His main research interests include:

• Arctic land surface processes, including mass and energy balances of snow and ice surface
• Large-scale hydrological modelling
• Global climate modelling
• Land surface/atmosphere interactions

Selected publications

(See the NERC Open Research Archive for a fuller list.)

Acreman, M C, Blake, J R, Booker, D J, Harding, R J, Reynard, N, Mountford, J O, Stratford, C J. (2009) A simple framework for evaluating regional wetland ecohydrological response to climate change with case studies from Great Britain. Ecohydrology, 2 (1). 1-17. doi.org/10.1002/eco.37

Herbst, Mathias, Rosier, Paul T. W, McNeil, David D, Harding, Richard J, Gowing, David J. (2008) Seasonal variability of interception evaporation from the canopy of a mixed deciduous forest. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 148. 1655-1667. doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2008.05.011

Harding, R J, Lloyd, C R. (2008) Evaporation and energy balance of a wet grassland at Tadham Moor on the Somerset Levels. Hydrological Processes, 22 (13). 2346-2357. doi.org/10.1002/hyp.6829

Warnaars, Tanya, Harding, Richard, Blyth, Eleanor, Hagemann, Stefan, Weedon, Graham, Tallaksen, Lena, van Lanen, Henny, Ludwig, Fulco. (2009) WATCH IP. Water and Global Change. Second year Activity report to the European Commission. NERC/Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. (CEH Project Number: C03276)

Warnaars, Tanya, Harding, Richard, Blyth, Eleanor, Ludwig, Fulco, Hagemann, Stefan, Best, Martin, Tallaksen, Lena, van Lanen, Henny. (2008) WATCH IP. Water and Global Change. First year Activity report to the European Commission. NERC/Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, 148pp. (CEH Project Number: C03276, WATCH IP)