Jim Hall | |
---|---|
Born | 6 May 1968 56) Sidcup, England | (age
Known for | Infrastructure systems, water resource systems, adaptation to climate change, flood and coastal risk analysis |
Awards | Prince Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (2018), Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2010), Institution of Civil Engineers' Robert Alfred Carr Prize (2004), Institution of Civil Engineers' George Stephenson Medal (2001), Institution of Civil Engineers' Frederick Palmer Prize (2001). |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Bristol |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Bristol,Newcastle University,University of Oxford |
James Hall, FREng (born May 6,1968) is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks and former director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. [1] He is director of research at the School of Geography and the Environment, [2] Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Engineering Science [3] and Fellow of Linacre College. [4] Hall is a member of the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, [5] commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission, [6] and is chair of the Science and Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. [7] He was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010. [8] He was a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2009 to 2019. He was appointed as vice-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2021 with a view to become president in 2024. [9]
Hall was born in Sidcup,England,and studied civil engineering at the University of Bristol,with a stage at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chausses before graduating in 1990. He was a civil engineer with Taylor Woodrow Construction from 1987 to 1990 and then served with VSO in Guyana from 1991 to 1993 working on flood protection and drainage projects. He worked with water specialist HR Wallingford from 1993 to 1995 before returning to Bristol University to undertake a PhD in engineering systems and uncertainty analysis which he completed in 1999. [10] He was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Post-doctoral Research Fellowship from 1999 to 2004 and became reader in civil engineering systems at the University of Bristol. In 2004,he was appointed as the inaugural Professor of Earth Systems Engineering at Newcastle University where he served until 2011. [11] He represented Newcastle University as a member of the Tyndall Centre Consortium,leading the centre's cities research programme and became deputy director of the Tyndall Centre. [3] He was appointed director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University [4] and was instrumental in the establishment of the Oxford Networks for the Environment (ONE) [12] which bring together research in the University of Oxford on energy, [13] climate,water, [14] biodiversity and food. [15] In 2018,he stood down as director of the Environmental Change Institute,and in 2020 he became director of research in the School of Geography and the Environment. [16]
He researches risk analysis and decision-making under uncertainty for water resource systems,flood and coastal risk management,infrastructure systems and adaptation to climate change.
Water Resources: Hall developed methods for planning water resources in the context of uncertain future climate changes. In 2018,Hall and his former doctoral student Edoardo Borgomeo were awarded the Prince Sultan Abdulaziz International Prize in the category of Water Management and Protection [17] [18] for developing a new risk-based framework to assess water security and plan water supply infrastructure in times of climate change. [19]
His research has focused on the quantification of risks from water resource systems especially the risks of water shortages [20] and harmful water quality [21] for people and the environment. This has contributed to the concept and literature of water security [22] although this approach has been criticised as reductionist. [23] With Claudia Sadoff and David Grey he was co-chair of the Global water partnership/OECD Task Force on the Economics of Water Security and Sustainable Growth. [24] [25]
Hall is on the technical panel for the National Infrastructure Commission. [26] His analysis of water risks in Britain provided evidence for the National Infrastructure Commission's 2018 report Preparing for a Drier Future, [27] for the Environment Agency's National framework for Water Resources [28] and for the UK water Regulators' Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development (RAPID). [29] He is editor of the AGU journal Water Resources Research. [30]
Flood risk: Hall developed the flood risk analysis for the first National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA) in England and Wales. [31] The same research now also underpins the Environment Agency's Long Term Investment Strategy. [32] He also developed the framework for uncertainty analysis in appraisal of options for protecting London from flooding over the 21st century,as part of the Environment Agency's 2012 Thames Estuary 2100 project. [33] He was coordinating lead author in the Government Office of Science and Technology's Foresight Future Flooding project [34] and was a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) for the 2014 floods emergency. He was advisor during the 2016 floods and the subsequent National Flood Resilience Review. [35]
Hall has published two books on flooding:Flood Risk Management in Europe:Innovation in Policy and Practice [36] and Applied Uncertainty in Flood Risk Management. [37]
Coastal Change: With Mike Walkden,Hall developed the SCAPE model,which can predict coastal cliff erosion decades into the future. SCAPE has been used to predict the impacts of climate change for coastal towns and nuclear sites. [38] He was part of the team that developed the Tyndall Coastal Simulator which models the response of the East Anglian coast to climate change. [39] Hall conceived the CoastalME modelling environment for simulating decadal to centennial morphological changes. [40] He led the Committee on Climate Change's 2018 report Managing the coast in a changing climate. [41]
Climate Change: Hall's research on adaptation to climate change has focused on climate change risk assessment and decision-making under uncertainty. He was a contributing author to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [42] which won a Nobel Peace Prize. [43] He was an advisor to the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change [44] and led the infrastructure background paper [45] for the Global Commission on Adaptation. [46] Between 2009 and 2019,Hall was a member of the UK Adaptation Committee [47] which is part of the Independent Climate Change Committee established by the 2008 UK Climate Change Act.
He is chair of the Steering Group of the £18.7m UKRI Climate Resilience Programme [48] and served on the Governance Board and the Peer Review Panel for he UK's national climate projections,UKCP 18. [49]
Infrastructure Systems: Jim Hall founded the UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium [50] which received two research Programme Grants from the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council. [51] [52] Hall led the development of the National Infrastructure Systems Model (NISMOD) which simulates the behaviour and interactions between energy,transport,digital,water and waste systems. NISMOD was used for the National Needs Assessment [53] led by Sir John Armitt and for the UK's first National Infrastructure Assessment. [54]
Hall now chairs the £8 million Data and Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (DAFNI) [55] at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. [56] [57] His book The Future of National Infrastructure [58] sets out the challenges of sustainable infrastructure in the 21st century and provides a template for assessing long-term policy,planning and investments. NISMOD has been taken up by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals [59] and has been used to inform infrastructure planning in Curaçao,St Lucia and Ghana. Hall developed several methods for analysing risks to infrastructure networks and prioritising actions to enhance network resilience. [60] The work was used as part of the National Infrastructure Commission's 2020 study of infrastructure resilience. [61] The work has twice been recognised with the award of the Lloyd's Science Prize [62] and it has been applied to the analysis of infrastructure network resilience in Tanzania,Vietnam,Argentina and China and at global scale.
Uncertainty and decision analysis: Hall applied generalised theories of probability to civil engineering and environmental systems,including random set theory, [63] the theory of imprecise probability [64] and info-gap theory. [65] He applied the theory of imprecise probabilities to analyse tipping points in the Earth System. [66]
Jim Hall has climbed new routes in Europe,North America,South America,the Himalayas and the Antarctic. He achieved the first ascent of South Face Thunder Mountain (Alaska) with Paul Ramsden and Nick Lewis, [67] the first winter ascents of Cerro Poincenot and Aig Guillaumet and a winter ascent of Fitzroy Supercouloir (Patagonia) with Paul Ramsden,Nick Lewis and Andy Kirkpatrick, [68] recounted in Kirkpatrick's book Psychovertical. [69]
A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water",the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture,civil engineering and public health. Human changes to the environment often increase the intensity and frequency of flooding. Examples for human changes are land use changes such as deforestation and removal of wetlands,changes in waterway course or flood controls such as with levees. Global environmental issues also influence causes of floods,namely climate change which causes an intensification of the water cycle and sea level rise. For example,climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent and stronger. This leads to more intense floods and increased flood risk.
Climate change adaptation is the process of adjusting to the effects of climate change. These can be both current or expected impacts. Adaptation aims to moderate or avoid harm for people,and is usually done alongside climate change mitigation. It also aims to exploit opportunities. Humans may also intervene to help adjustment for natural systems. There are many adaptation strategies or options. They can help manage impacts and risks to people and nature. The four types of adaptation actions are infrastructural,institutional,behavioural and nature-based options.
Climate risk is the potential for problems for societies or ecosystems from the impacts of climate change. The assessment of climate risk is based on formal analysis of the consequences,likelihoods and responses to these impacts. Societal constraints can also shape adaptation options. There are different values and preferences around risk,resulting in differences of risk perception.
The effects of climate change in Florida are attributable to man-made increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Floridians are experiencing increased flooding due to sea level rise,and are concerned about the possibility of more frequent or more intense hurricanes.
Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes,such as extreme weather upstream,and human changes to waterbodies and runoff. Flood control methods can be either of the structural type and of the non-structural type. Structural methods hold back floodwaters physically,while non-structural methods do not. Building hard infrastructure to prevent flooding,such as flood walls,is effective at managing flooding. However,best practice within landscape engineering is more and more to rely on soft infrastructure and natural systems,such as marshes and flood plains,for handling the increase in water.
The aim of water security is to make the most of water's benefits for humans and ecosystems. The second aim is to limit the risks of destructive impacts of water to an acceptable level. These risks include for example too much water (flood),too little water or poor quality (polluted) water. People who live with a high level of water security always have access to "an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health,livelihoods and production". For example,access to water,sanitation and hygiene services is one part of water security. Some organizations use the term water security more narrowly for water supply aspects only.
Coastal flooding occurs when dry and low-lying land is submerged (flooded) by seawater. The range of a coastal flooding is a result of the elevation of floodwater that penetrates the inland which is controlled by the topography of the coastal land exposed to flooding. The seawater can flood the land via several different paths:direct flooding,overtopping of a barrier,or breaching of a barrier. Coastal flooding is largely a natural event. Due to the effects of climate change and an increase in the population living in coastal areas,the damage caused by coastal flood events has intensified and more people are being affected.
Urban resilience has conventionally been defined as the "measurable ability of any urban system,with its inhabitants,to maintain continuity through all shocks and stresses,while positively adapting and transforming towards sustainability".
Climate change is a critical issue in Bangladesh. as the country is one of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In the 2020 edition of Germanwatch's Climate Risk Index,it ranked seventh in the list of countries most affected by climate calamities during the period 1999–2018. Bangladesh's vulnerability to the effects of climate change is due to a combination of geographical factors,such as its flat,low-lying,and delta-exposed topography. and socio-economic factors,including its high population density,levels of poverty,and dependence on agriculture. The impacts and potential threats include sea level rise,temperature rise,food crisis,droughts,floods,and cyclones.
The Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford in England was founded in 1991 "to organize and promote interdisciplinary research on the nature,causes and impact of environmental change and to contribute to the development of management strategies for coping with future environmental change".
Climate resilience is a concept to describe how well people or ecosystems are prepared to bounce back from certain climate hazard events. The formal definition of the term is the "capacity of social,economic and ecosystems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance". For example,climate resilience can be the ability to recover from climate-related shocks such as floods and droughts. Methods of coping include suitable responses to maintain relevant functions of societies and ecosystems. To increase climate resilience means one has to reduce the climate vulnerability of people and countries. Efforts to increase climate resilience include a range of social,economic,technological,and political strategies. They have to be implemented at all scales of society,from local community action all the way to global treaties.
Community resilience is the sustained ability of a community to use available resources to respond to,withstand,and recover from adverse situations. This allows for the adaptation and growth of a community after disaster strikes. Communities that are resilient are able to minimize any disaster,making the return to normal life as effortless as possible. By implementing a community resilience plan,a community can come together and overcome any disaster,while rebuilding physically and economically.
Colin Reginald Thorne is Chair of Physical Geography at the University of Nottingham. A fluvial geomorphologist with an educational background in environmental sciences,civil engineering and physical geography;he has published 9 books and over 120 journal papers and book chapters.
Nature-based solutions is the sustainable management and use of natural processes to tackle socio-environmental issues. These issues include for example climate change mitigation and adaptation,water security,and disaster risk reduction. The aim is that resilient ecosystems provide solutions for the benefit of both societies and biodiversity. The 2019 UN Climate Action Summit highlighted nature-based solutions as an effective method to combat climate change. For example,nature-based systems for climate change adaptation can include natural flood management,restoring natural coastal defences,and providing local cooling.
Ana Mijic is an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Imperial College London who works in systems water management. She has expertise in advanced modelling of integrated water systems,as well as the analysis of processes,planning,resilience and economics.
Auroop Ratan Ganguly is an American hydrologist,a climate and computational scientist,and a civil engineer of Indian origin best known for his work at the intersection of climate extremes and water sustainability,infrastructural resilience and homeland security,and artificial intelligence and nonlinear dynamics.
The UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC) was established in January 2011. The ITRC provides data and modelling to help governments,policymakers and other stakeholders in infrastructure make more sustainable and resilient infrastructure decisions. It is a collaboration between seven universities and more than 55 partners from infrastructure policy and practice.
Urban flooding is the inundation of land or property in cities or other built environment,caused by rainfall overwhelming the capacity of drainage systems,such as storm sewers. Urban flooding can happen regardless of whether or not affected communities are located within designated floodplains or near any body of water. It is triggered for example by an overflow of rivers and lakes,flash flooding or snowmelt. During the flood,stormwater or water released from damaged water mains may accumulate on property and in public rights-of-way. It can seep through building walls and floors,or backup into buildings through sewer pipes,cellars,toilets and sinks.
Omar-Darío Cardona Arboleda is a civil engineer,academic,and author. He is a Titular Professor of integrated disaster risk management and climate change adaptation in the Institute of Environment Studies at the National University of Colombia,Co-founder,and CEO of Ingeniar:Risk Intelligence.