Katie Muchan

My main research interests are in hydrology, with a focus on rainfall measurement and hydrometric data management, analysis and interpretation. 

Katie joined UKCEH in October 2012 as a Hydrological Data Scientist with the majority of her role in the UK National River Flow Archive team, and is responsible for co-ordinating the acquisition and quality control of the annual update annual submissions of mean and peak river flow data from the UK Measuring Authorities, releasing these data to NRFA users, including the publication of versioned NRFA Peak Flows dataset, the industry standard dataset for flood estimation in the UK. 

To facilitate this process, Katie manages the operational partnership between UKCEH/NRFA and the UK Hydrometric Measuring Authorities, agreeing the timetables for each submission and reporting on progress throughout the process. Internally, she manages the team of 12 NRFA Regional Representatives who undertake the quality control and data stewardship activities for specific parts of the country, taking on this role for East Scotland herself. 

​Katie also plays a significant role in the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme team, commenting on the current hydrological situation by producing and authoring the Hydrological Summary for the UK and contributing to blogs and occassional reports on major hydrological events.

Since August 2019, Katie has used her data management skills and experience to take on the role of Data Manager for the Environmental Change Network, processing and quality controlling the backlog and incoming submissions of data for the 12 ECN Terrestrial sites, liaising with site managers to resolve data quality issues.

Until August 2019, Katie was responsible for the day-to-day running and maintenance of the Meteorological Station based at UKCEH Wallingford, which has daily recordings of weather observations dating back to 1962 and sub-daily recordings from an Automatic Weather Station since 2003. Since moving to UKCEH Lancaster in August 2019, she has continued to be lead on the rainfall undercatch research undertaken at the station with the most recent research published leading to a change in the gauge type used in the operational raingauge network in England.