Jamie Hannaford

Current role

Since 2009, I have been responsible for managing the UK National River Flow Archive (NRFA) based at CEH's Wallingford site. The NRFA is the UK’s focal point for hydrometric data, providing access to daily and monthly river flow data for some 1,500 gauging stations nationally, as well as various complementary datasets. The NRFA team is responsible for the stewardship of the archive, and for developing systems to enable dissemination of the data to our user community. We also have a major role to play in exploiting and analysing the data to answer key scientific questions. 

The analysis of river flow data is my main personal research specialisation. The NRFA has a particularly important role to play in documenting hydrological conditions in the UK, which is conducted through the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme. I contribute by writing some of the monthly Hydrological Summaries for the UK and reports on major hydrological events. I also have a long-standing research interest in investigating hydrological trends, with a view to examining evidence for climate change and other impacts on river flows in the UK.

Outside the NRFA, I contribute to other major research projects, notably the droughts component of the EU FP-6 Project, WATCH (Water and Global Change).

Main research interests

• Analysis and interpretation of hydrological trends and variability
• Developing and promoting a Benchmark Network of near-natural catchments for change detection in the UK
• Documenting major flood and drought events (e.g. Summer Floods 2007; Cumbria floods November 2009)
• Droughts: indicators, monitoring and forecasting. Analysis of historical droughts in the UK and Europe
• Evaluating the performance of large-scale gridded hydrological models and using them for climate change impact assessment
• Optimisation of hydrometric networks
• Development of new methodologies for improving quality and completeness of hydrometric datasets

Brief CV

I have worked in the NRFA since joining CEH in 2001, firstly working as a Hydrological Analyst, developing methods for data acquisition and quality control, and working on detection and attribution of trends. From 2007, I spent two years managing the Data Analysis and Exploitation function within the NRFA, before taking on management of the NRFA project in 2009.

My background is in physical geography (BSc University of Plymouth). Prior to CEH I spent two years at the University of Leeds researching runoff generation on semi-arid hill slopes in southeast Spain, followed by a year working as a soil scientist for the Sports Turf Research Institute in Bingley, W. Yorks.

Publications

Plase see also the NERC Open Research Archive.

Stahl, K., Tallaksen, L.M., Hannaford, J., van Lanen, H.A.J.  2012. Filling the white space on maps of European runoff trends: estimates from a multi-model ensemble. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 9, 2005 - 2032

Fox-Maule, C. Thejll, P., Christensen, J.H., Svendsen, S.H. and Hannaford, J. Improved  confidence in RCM simulations of precipitation from the ENSEMBLES models using drought statistics. In press: Climate Dynamics

Parry, S., Hannaford, J., Lloyd-Hughes, B, Prudhomme, C. Multi-year droughts in Europe: analysis of development and causes.  In press: Hydrology Research

Hannaford, J., Holmes, M.G.R., Laize, C.R., Marsh, T.J., Young, A.R. Optimising hydrometric networks for  regionalisation: a new methodology and its application to England and Wales. In press:  Hydrology Research

Harvey, C., Dixon, H. and Hannaford, J.  An appraisal of the performance of data infilling methods for application to daily mean river flow records in the UK.  In press: Hydrology Research

Miller, J., Kjeldsen, T.J., Hannaford, J., Morris, D.G.  An assessment of the magnitude and rarity of the November 2009 floods in Cumbria. In press:  Hydrology Research

Watts, G. , Christierson, B., Hannaford, J., Lonsdale, K. Testing the resilience of water supply systems to long droughts in England and Wales. 2012.  Journal of Hydrology , 414 – 415. 255 - 267

Prudhomme, C., Parry, S., Hannaford, J., Clark, D.B., Hagemann, S., Voss, F. (2010).  How well do large-scale models reproduce regional hydrological extremes in Europe? In press, Journal of Hydrometeorology. DOI: 10.1175/2011JHM1387.1

Hannaford, J., Lloyd-Hughes, B., Keef, C., Parry, S., Prudhomme, C. (2011). Examining the large-scale spatial coherence of European drought using regional indicators of rainfall and streamflow deficit. Hydrological Processes 25,  1146-1162.

Stahl, K., Hisdal, H., Hannaford, J., Tallaksen, L. M., van Lanen, H. A. J., Sauquet, E., Demuth, S., Fendekova, M., and Jódar, J. (2010). Streamflow trends in Europe: evidence from a dataset of near-natural catchments, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences  14, 2367-2382

Hannaford, J. and Harvey, C. (2010). Insights into UK seasonal river flow variability from undisturbed catchments and long hydrometric records. In: Kirby, Celia (ed.), Role of Hydrology in Managing Consequences of a Changing Global Environment. British Hydrological Society Third International Symposium, Newcastle. British Hydrological Society, 96-102.

Acreman, M.C., Aldrick, J. Binnie, C., Black, A., Cowx,I., Dawson, H., Dunbar, M.J., Extence, C., Hannaford, J., Harby, A., Holmes, N., Jarrett, N., Malcolm, I., Old, G., Pierson, G., Wood, P., Webb, J. (2009). Environmental flows from dams: the Water Framework Directive. Engineering Sustainability, 162. 13 – 22.   

Acreman, M.C., Dunbar, M.J., Hannaford, J., Wood, P.J., Holmes, N., Cowx, I., Noble, R., Mountford, J.O., King, J., Black, A., Extence, C. Crookall, D., Aldrick. J. (2008). Developing environmental standards for abstractions from UK rivers to implement the Water Framework Directive. Hydrological Sciences Journal. 53 (6) 1105-1120

Marsh, T.J. and Hannaford, J. (2008). The 2007 Summer floods in England and Wales – a hydrological appraisal. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, 32pp

Hannaford, J. and Marsh, T.J. (2008). High flow and flood trends in a network of undisturbed catchments in the UK. International Journal of Climatology, 28 (10), 1325-1338.

Buonomo, E., Jones, R., Huntingford, C. and Hannaford, J. (2007). The robustness of high resolution predictions of changes in extreme rainfall for Europe from two high resolution climate change scenarios. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. 133, 65 -81

Hannaford, J. and Marsh, T.J. (2006). An assessment of trends in UK runoff and low flows using a network of undisturbed catchments. International Journal of Climatology, 26 (9) p.1237-1253