Christel Prudhomme

I am a UKCEH Fellow and a visiting Professor at Loughborough University specialised in Hydro-climatology.  I led a small team at CEH dedicated to study, understand and model the development in time and space of water deficits across spatial scales (from local to global), to assess their associated uncertainty and to quantifying the impact of climate variability and change on the hydrological processes and how in turn this impacts on the environment. I coordinated CEH research on droughts and supervised a number of PhD Students.

I was PI of the Copernicus funded project EDgE 'End-to-end Demonstrator for Improved decision making in the water sector for Europe' (1.6mE) which will develop a prototype tool box to deliver seasonal forecasts and climate change projections to the water sector. EDgE involved 6 other international organisations: the Environement Agency of England, The Helmhotlz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ (Germany), the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (Norway), Cetaqua (Spain), the Mediterranean Network of Basin Organisations MENBO (Spain) and the Climate Partnership Ltd (USA). 

I am CEH PI of the NERC-funded IMPETUS (grant number NE/L010267/1) aiming to improve the forecasting of UK droughts on monthly to decadal timescales, and in doing so to help the development of improved decision-making processes. In partnership with Met Office, BGS, WHS and EA, I am leading CEH input to provide monthly probabilistic outlooks of river flow and groundwater levels across England and Wales based on an Ensemble Streamflow Prediction system. The results are now operationally included in the EA monthly Water Situation Reports and also contribute to the Hydrological Outlook. I coordinate work on the Thames basin for the EU-FP7 MARS project, which aims to quantify how river flows, groundwater levels, water chemistry and biology respond to drivers such as droughts, eutrophication and water management.

I have managed the ‘Future Flows and Groundwater Levels’ partnership project which delivered an ensemble of national 148-year daily river flow and monthly groundwater levels for 281 river catchments and 24 boreholes made available to the research community to investigate the role of climate variability on river flow and groundwater levels nationally and how this may change in the future.

I have also led CEH contribution to the EU-FP7 WATCH Work Block 4 (hydrological extremes) where CEH delivered objective European Drought and High flow catalogues, now benchmarks to study hydrological extremes at continental scale. I have also led research into developing new ways to assess the ability of Global Impact Models to reproduce hydrological extremes at a regional (sub-national) level. The work has continued through the ISI-MIP project phase 1, where I lead the assessment of future drought risk globally and its associated uncertainty, published in PNAS.

In the last 20 years, I have focused my research on improving methodologies for assessing the impact of climate change on river flows. I have also developed an interest for seasonal forecasting. Most of my research has been commissioned by government agencies such as the Environment Agency or Defra and has contributed to changes in water management or policy.

Employment History

2015-2017

Project manager and team leader; principal hydroclimatologist, CEH . Science leader and project manager; expert in drought, climate variability and change impact on the hydrology and the environment research; principal investigator and project manager of externally and internally funded projects, including leading response to external funding calls; team and science lead; PhD supervisor; communicator of science representing CEH nationally and internationally

2004-2015

Project manager and team leader; senior hydrologist, CEH.  CEH science coordinator and lead on drought (since 2012); expert in climate variability and change impact on the hydrology and the environment research; principal investigator and project manager of externally and internally funded projects, including leading response to external funding calls; team and science lead; PhD supervisor; communicator of science representing CEH nationally and internationally

Research Engineer at the Direction de Recherche et Developpement d'Electricite de France (Chatou, France). Lead for development and maintenance of tools for flood frequency analysis. Lead scientist on seasonal forecasting research to improve multi-usage reservoir management planning for regional and national hydropower-production; expert in climate change and development of external collaborations (flood, droughts and climate change impact).

1996-2002

Senior Science Officer/ Higher Science Officier. Expert scientist and science investigator on environmental and climate change impact on water resource; initiation of CEH research on seasonal forecasting. Team member of 'Flood Estimation Handbook'.

1992-1995

PhD at Cemagref Lyon (France) and University of Montpellier (France). Regionalisation of flood frequency methods

Work Experience

Project management and science leadership

• Lead PI and deputy project lead ‘EDgE: End-to-end Demonstrator for improved decision making in the water sector in Europe’ (EU-Copernicus, 2015-2017, Total 1.6M€, CEH 627k€)
• CEH PI and international expert ‘Lakes in Transition’ (NFR research grant Programme Milijo 2015, Norway)
• CEH PI NE/L010267/1 IMPETUS ‘Improving predictions of drought for user decision-making' (NERC thematic programme; CEH budget £555k FTE )
• Co-I NE/L01016X/1 'Analysis of historic drought and water scarcity in the UK: a systems-based study of drivers, impacts and their interactions' (NERC thematic programme; CEH budget £655k)
• CEH-PI  MAR5343 'CCRA2: Updated projections of water availability for the UK' (CCC funding; HRWallingford lead; CEH budget £30k)
• CEH-PI SC0120048 'Performance of water supply systems during extreme drought' (EA/ UKWIR funding; AMEC lead; CEH budget: £17k) 
• Co-I CEH-WP4 MARS 'Managing Aquatic ecosystems and water resources under multiple stress' (EU-FP7; NERC budget €948k) and coordinator of the Thames basin case study
• Lead PI SC090019 'Future flows and groundwater levels' (Partnership funding; total budget budget £760k FTE)
• Co-I CEH-WB4 WATCH 'Water and Global Change' (EU-FP5; CEH-WB4 budget: £621k)
• Lead PI SC070079 'The spatial coherence of European droughts' (EA funding; total budget £81.5k);

Science leadership

CEH science coordination and leadership on low flows and drought research
Science lead DEFRA/EA project FD2020 ' Regionalisation of climate change impact on floods' (£240k);
Seasonal forecasting participant to HEPEX; collaboration with Princeton (US) and Cemagref (France)
Development of new initiatives/ advise to government as requested

Team leadership, mentoring and teaching

Low flows and drought team

Main supervisor 4 PhD students (2 completed within 4 years, 2 on-going)

• D. Lavers ‘ Seasonal Hydrological Prediction in Great Britain – an Assessment’ (2010)
• R. Ledbetter ‘An Assessment of Uncertainties in the Analysis of the Impact of Climate Change on Flooding’ (2012)
• I. Giuntoli ‘Development of droughts in Europe: from observations to inter-model comparisons’ (start 2012)
• S. Parry ‘Drought termination’ (part time, start 2013)

Co-supervisor/ expert advice 2 PhD students (on-going)

• A. Chiverton ‘Understanding drivers of historical variability in river flows and groundwater in the UK’ (start 2011)
• A. Royan ‘Assessing the vulnerability of river birds to hydrological disturbance’ (start 2012)

Lecturer

• WMO Regional training centre course on ‘Seasonal forecasts and water management in the Mediterranean basin: integrated approach’ (October 2015, Italy)
• Guest lecturer Loughborough University (Climate and Society module third year geography degree; Msc Professional Practice module)
• WATCH summer school (UK, July 2011)
• COST 733 training school (Germany, April 2010)