Professional summary

Research Interests

  • Hydrological data management and exploitation
  • AI/ML in environmental sciences, and Environmental Digital Twins
  • Digital Research Infrastructures  
  • Web-based dissemination of environmental data
  • Time series data standards
  • Software for environmental science
  • Hydrological data rescue

Brief CV

I lead a group of scientists, data managers, analysts and software developers mostly working on projects to deliver our science and data to end users.

We produce, analyse and manage datasets within UKCEH's water science, and develop applications to get data out to end users, who can be researchers, consultants, regulators or the general public.

I work on the delivery of the UK Flood and Drought Research Infrastructure, leading activities to produce a digital research infrastructure for floods and drought that will provide a step-change in how the UK research community (and beyond) access, integrate, and analyse new and existing sources of hydrological data. 

I am a Senior Research Fellow with the Alan Turing Institute, developing projects and collaborations to increase capabilities to exploit AI and data science to address environmental problems, particularly in the area of terrestrial and freshwater sciences, and leading a project on AI and autonomous systems for biodiversity monitoring.

I am involved in a number of Environmental Digital Twin initiatives, including the development of an Information Management Framework for Environmental Digital Twins and leading the Land InSight digital twin project.

I have an interest freshwater citizen science and how data can be standardised, integrated and analysed for improving understanding and management of freshwater ecosystems. I lead the Data Platforms Working Group of the CastCo project.

I work on UKCEH's Hydro-JULES project, setting out how we can make hydrological data and models more accessible to the wider research community, including through the use of DataLabs as a collaborative web-enable platform for use of the JASMIN facility.

I am an active member of the NERC Digital Environment Expert Network. I was PI of the ENTRAIN project within the NERC Constructing a Digital Environment Programme looking at bringing together sensor networks; developing standards-based data structures and linking environmental monitoring sites to the river network; assessing new ways to capture sensor data in the field and transmit this to data storage; and developing machine learning algorithms for quality control and infilling of sensor data.

I am leading the Hydrology project of the Copernicus in situ component; identifying requirements for in situ hydrological monitoring data (river and lake levels, river flows, river and lake water quality, soil moisture) for the Copernicus services, and coordinating actions to improve their access to this data.

I lead IT systems development for the National River Flow Archive at Wallingford, where we are developing and applying tools for managing and using river gauging station data. This includes time series data (such as flow and rainfall), gauging station metadata (on things like station history and measurement quality) and spatial datasets (catchment boundaries, gridded rainfall, etc.). We have live data streams, an API, and a related R package.

I am co-chair of the Global Water Information Interest Group of the Research Data Alliance. I am a member of the Open Geospatial Consortium's Hydrology Domain Working Group, who are developing standards for water data transfer, including WaterML2.

I lead the systems for the COSMOS-UK project, streaming, processing and quality-controlling real-time data from telemetry and making it accessible via web-services.

I managed the data element of a knowledge exchange project for the UK Drought and Water Scarcity Programme, through which we delivered a large number of new drought datasets, infrastructure to enable programmatic access to this data, and web applications to make data access simple (including the UK Water Resources Portal, Drought Data Hub, and more).

I managed the development of UKCEH's Environmental Information Platform, and related initiatives attempting to integrate data and modelling and produce web-portals for disseminating UKCEH science and data. This includes our Droughts and Lakes Portals.

I have written guidance on data management for the World Meteorological Organisation, including the Guidelines for Hydrological Data Rescue and Guide to Hydrological Practices.

In my time at UKCEH I have helped produce the LowFlows software for the Environment Agency and SEPA, and software for implementing the Flood Estimation Handbook rainfall-runoff method, and helped commercialise these through Wallingford Hydrosolutions with whom I spent 5 years on part-time secondment as software manager. I managed the HYDATA software used as the national hydrometric archive in many developing countries and have extensive experience working in Africa. I have also produced drought analysis software and GIS-based water resources management software for the southern Africa region and have run numerous training workshops through projects such as FRIEND.

Qualifications

Publications

  • Fry, Matthew; Farquharson, Francis, 2008. Data storage, access and dissemination. In: , (eds.) , Guide to Hydrological Practices. World Meteorological Organisation, . .

  • Fry, M. J.; Folwell, S. S.; Houghton-Carr, H. A.; Uka, Z. B., 2004. An integrated water resources management tool for Southern Africa allowing low flow estimation at ungauged sites. In: Stephenson, D.; Shemang, E.M.; Chaoka, T.R., (eds.) , Water Resources of Arid Areas:Proceedings of the International Conference on Water Resources of Arid and Semi-Arid Regions of Africa. AA Balkema/Taylor & Francis, 507-514. .

  • Fry, M.J.; Holmes, M.G.R., 2002. Application of a GIS-based decision support system for water resources management in developing countries. In: Falconer, R.A.; Lin, B.; Harris, E.L.; Wilson, C.A.M.E.; Cluckie, I.D.; Han, D.; Davis, J.P.; Heslop, S., (eds.) , Hydroinformatics 2002 Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Hydroinformatics. IWA, 939-945. .

  • Buck J.H.; Siddorn J.; Blair G.; Boot D.; Byrne J.; Kingdon A.; Kloker A.; Kokkinaki A.; Moncoiffe G.; Blyth E.; Fry M.; Heaven R.; Lewis E.; Marchant B.; Napier B.; Passmore J.; Pepler S.; Townsend P.; Watkins J.; Winfield K.; , 2022, Developing an Information Management Framework for Environmental Digital Twins (IMFe).. In: 2022 AGU Fall Meeting, 12-16 Dec., Chicago, Il, USA, 12-16 Dec 2022

  • Khamis Doran; Fry Matt; Cooper Hollie; Morrison Ross; Blyth Eleanor; , 2022, Data-driven approaches to linking soil moisture and soil carbon. In: 2022 UK Conference on Environmental Data Science, Lancaster, 5-7 July 2022

  • Barker Lucy; Nash Gemma; Fry Matt; Hannaford Jamie; Tanguy Maliko; , 2020, Dynamic real-time hydrological status monitoring in the UK. In: European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020

  • Crowhurst David; Morrison Ross; Evans Jonathan; Cooper Hollie; Cumming Alex; Fry Matthew; Boorman David; , 2019, Actual evaporation data system for COSMOS-UK. In: Hydro-JULES: Next Generation Land Surface and Hydrological Predictions, The Royal Society, London, 11 Sept 2019

  • Coxon G.; Addor N.; Bloomfield J.; Freer J.; Fry M.; Hannaford J.; Howden N.; Jackson C.; Robinson E.; Wagener T.; Woods R.; , 2019, CAMELS-GB : a large sample, open-source, hydro-meteorological dataset for Great Britain. In: EGU General Assembly 2019, Vienna, Austria, 7-12 April 2019

  • Morrison Ross; Evans Jonathan; Angadi S.S.; Ball Lucy; Chakraborty Tirthankar; Cooper Hollie; Fry Matthew; Geet George; Goswami Mangesh; Ganeshi N.; Hitt Olivia; Jain Sharad; Krishnan Mithun; Krishnan R.; Kumar Amit; Mujumdar Milind; Nema Manish; Rees Gwyn; Sekhar Muddu; Swain Oliver; Thayyen Renoj; Tripathi Sachchida Nand; Upadhyaya Deepti; Jenkins Alan; , 2017, Cosmic-ray soil water monitoring: the development, status & potential of the COSMOS-India network. In: 7th International Groundwater Conference (IGWC 2017), New Delhi, India, 11-13 Dec 2017

  • Houghton-Carr, H.A.; Fry, M.J.; Farquharson, F.A.K., 2008, Driving forces of future water availability and water use within Europe. In: British Hydrological Society 10th National Hydrology Symposium, Exeter, UK, 15-17 September 2008

  • Houghton-Carr, H.; Fry, M., 2006, The decline of hydrological data collection for development of integrated water resource management tools in Southern Africa. In: Climate variability and change: hydrological impacts. Proceedings of the fifth FRIEND World Conference, Havana, Cuba, November 2006

  • Stanley Simon; Antoniou Vasileios; Askquith-Ellis Anne; Ball Lucy; Bennett Emma; Blake James; Boorman David; Brooks Milo; Clarke Mike; Cooper Hollie; Cowan Nicholas; Cumming Alexander; Evans Jonathan; Farrand Philip; Fry Matthew; Hitt Olivia; Lord William; Morrison Ross; Nash Gemma; Rylett Daniel; Scarlett Peter; Swain Oliver; Szczykulska Magdalena; Thornton Jenna; Trill Emily; Warwick Alan; Winterbourn Ben; , Daily and sub-daily hydrometeorological and soil data (2013-2019) [COSMOS-UK].

  • Stanley Simon; Antoniou Vasileios; Askquith-Ellis Anne; Ball Lucy; Bennett Emma; Blake James; Boorman David; Brooks Milo; Clarke Mike; Cooper Hollie; Cowan Nicholas; Evans Jonathan; Farrand Philip; Fry Matthew; Hitt Olivia; Kral Filip; Lord William; Morrison Ross; Nash Gemma; Rylett Daniel; Scarlett Peter; Szczykulska Magdalena; Thornton Jenna; Swain Oliver; Trill Emily; Warwick Alan; Winterbourn Ben; , Daily and sub-daily hydrometeorological and soil data (2013-2018) [COSMOS-UK].

  • Stanley Simon; Antoniou Vasileios; Ball Lucy; Bennett Emma; Blake James; Boorman David; Brooks Milo; Clarke Mike; Cooper Hollie; Cowan Nicholas; Evans Jonathan; Farrand Philip; Fry Matthew; Hitt Olivia; Jenkins Alan; Kral Filip; Lord William; Morrison Ross; Nash Gemma; Rylett Daniel; Scarlett Peter; Swain Oliver; Thornton Jenna; Trill Emily; Warwick Alan; Winterbourn Ben; , Daily and sub-daily hydrometeorological and soil data (2013-2017) [COSMOS-UK].

  • Coxon G.; Addor N.; Bloomfield J.P.; Freer J.; Fry M.; Hannaford J.; Howden N.J.K.; Lane R.; Lewis M.; Robinson E.L.; Wagnener T.; Woods R.; , Catchment attributes and hydro-meteorological timeseries for 671 catchments across Great Britain (CAMELS-GB).

  • Siddorn J.; Blair G.; Boot D.; Buck J.; Kingdon A.; Kloker A.; Kokkinaki A.; Moncoiffe G.; Blyth E.; Fry M.; Heaven R.; Lewis E.; Marchant B.; Napier B.; Pascoe C.; Passmore J.; Pepler S.; Townsend P.; Watkins J.; , 2022, An Information Management Framework for Environmental Digital Twins (IMFe).

  • Old Gareth; Reynard Nick; Rees Gwyn; Coxon Gemma; Wagener Thorsten; Bloomfield John; Buytaert Wouter; Fry Matthew; Barlow Victoria; Spencer Marcia; Badcock Nichola; Smith Rebecca; , 2022, Scoping a floods and droughts research infrastructure (FDRI): report for the FDRI community, May 2020 to January 2022.

  • Carvalho Laurence; Ruescas Anna; Stelzer Kerstin; Brockmann Carsten; Taylor Philip; Dobel Anne; Nash Gemma; Fry Matt; , 2021, Lake water quality in-situ data requirements and availability.

  • Sefton Catherine; Stanley Simon; Fry Matt; , 2021, Ayeyarwady Integrated River Basin Management Project (AIRBM): Myanmar WMO Hydrology Training Programme. Module A7/9, Hydrological data management.

  • Dadson Simon; Blyth Eleanor; Clark Douglas; Ellis Rich; Fry Matthew; Polcher Jan; Hallouin Thibault; Lawrence Bryan; Lister Grenville; Hughes Andrew; Best Martin; , 2021, Hydro-JULES system design.