Elizabeth Lewis

I am a lecturer in Computational Hydrology at Newcastle University and have been a researcher here since 2015. I am currently a Fellow of Newcastle Policy Academy and an Embedded researcher at the Environment Agency. My area of expertise are hydrological data, hydrological modelling and climate impacts.

My work falls into two categories. The first is about improving the quantity and quality of hydrological data, so that we can examine observations and determine how climate change is already affecting hydrological extremes. This includes investigating the potential application of novel datasets such as citizen science data, community-gathered data, and data hidden in institutional records, as well as creating software to rigorously quality control existing formal data streams. My second focus is on developing sophisticated computer models to project near-real time to far future flood and drought characteristics and frequencies. In this work I use a national-scale physically-based hydrological model (SHETRAN-GB) to investigate climate impacts on future high and low flows. I am working on a number of projects to couple this hydrological model to other impact models. I also work closely with a range of project partners, primarily the Environment Agency, to ensure that the latest scientific and engineering developments are translated into practise.