Dr Thomas Kjeldsen

Research Interests

My research focuses mainly on the use of mathematical and statistical modelling of environmental and hydrological systems with emphasis on predicting extreme hydrological events (including uncertainty) such as floods and droughts. Current research efforts aim to understand the effect of environmental change (climate change, urbanisation, land-use management) on flood characteristics. Since joining CEH in 2003 most of my research has been aimed at improving flood prediction in the UK, and developing tools for use by public, private and academic institutions involved in flood risk management. This includes methods described in the Flood Estimation Handbook (FEH): the Revitalised FSR/FEH rainfall-runoff model and the new FEH statistical procedures.

I am chairing the COST Action ES0901 European procedures for flood frequency estimation involving researcher teams from more than 20 European countries.

Brief CV

• 2009: R&D coordinator: flood & drought modelling and forecasting, CEH
• 2003: Hydrological modeller, CEH, Wallingford
• 2002: Hydrologist, JBA Consulting, UK
• 2001: PhD (Civil Engineering), Technical University of Denmark
• 2000: Research Assistant, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Recent publications

See also the NERC Open Research Archive.

Kjeldsen, T. R. (2010) Modelling the impact of urbanisation on flood frequency relationships in the UK. Hydrology Research

Kjeldsen T. R. and Jones D. A. (2010) Predicting the index flood in ungauged UK catchments: On the link between data-transfer and spatial model error structure. Journal of Hydrology, 387, 1-9, doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.03.024.

Kjeldsen T.R. (2009) Modelling the impact of urbanisation on flood runoff volumes. ICE Proc. Water Management, 162(5), 329-336. doi: 10.1680/wama.2009.162.5.329

Kjeldsen, T. R. and Jones, D. A. (2009) A formal statistical model for pooled analysis of extreme floods. Hydrology Research, 40(5), 465-480. doi:10.2166/nh.2009.055

Kjeldsen T.R. and Jones D.A. (2009) An exploratory analysis of error components in hydrological regression modelling. Water Resources Research, 45, W02407, doi:10.1029/2007WR006283.

Kay A.L., Jones D.A., Crooks S.M., Kjeldsen T.R. and Fung C.F. (2007) An investigation of site-similarity approaches to generalisation of a rainfall-runoff model. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 11(1), 500-515.

Kjeldsen T.R. and Jones D.A. (2007) Estimation of the index flood using data transfer in the UK. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 52(1), 86-98.

Kjeldsen T.R. and Jones D.A. (2006) Prediction uncertainty in a median based index flood method using L-moments. Water Resources Research, 42, W07414, doi:10.1029/2005WR004069.

Kjeldsen T.R., Prudhomme C., Svensson C. and Stewart E.J. (2006) A shortcut to seasonal design rainfall estimates in the UK. Journal of CIWEM, 20(4), 282-286. doi:10.1111/j.1747-6593.2006.00028.x

Kjeldsen T.R. and Rosbjerg D. (2004) Choice of Reliability-Resilience-Vulnerability estimators for risk-assessments of water resources systems. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 49(5), 755-767.

Kjeldsen T.R. and Jones D.A. (2004) Sampling variance of flood quantiles from the generalised logistic distribution estimated using the method of L-moments. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 8(2), 183-190.

Kjeldsen T.R., Smithers J.C. and Schulze R.E. (2002) Regional flood frequency analysis in the KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, using the index flood method. Journal of Hydrology, 255(1-4), 194-211.