Elizabeth Lewis

Faculty, Policy Academy Fellow

I have been a researcher at Newcastle since 2015 and am currently a Fellow of Newcastle Policy Academy. I was previously the Tyndall Early Career Representative at Newcastle University.

 

INTENSE (“Intelligent use of climate models for adaptation to non-Stationary hydrological Extremes”):

€2M ERC project led by Prof. Hayley Fowler, Newcastle University

Exploring drivers of change in extreme sub daily rainfall

Creating a global sub-daily rainfall dataset

Extensive quality control algorithms developed.

Incorporating information from satellite and radar

Set of global sub-daily rainfall indices developed

Improving high resolution climate models

Project partners include the UK Met office, Reading University, SMHI, IITGN, Washington University, NCAR , University of Adelaide, University of New South Wales, KNMI, Princeton University, GEWEX

 

SINATRA: Susceptibility of catchments to Intense Rainfall and flooding:

5 year NERC funded programme led by Prof. Hannah Cloke (Reading) and Prof. Hayley Fowler (Newcastle)

Advancing scientific understanding of the processes determining the probability, incidence and impacts of Flooding from Intense Rainfall

Extensive quality control of tipping bucket rain gauge data.

Development of gridded hourly rainfall dataset for the UK

Project partners include Bristol University, University of Stuttgart, CEH

 

Developing systems for rapid analysis of groundwater conceptualisations:

ESPRC Impact Acceleration Account, led by Dr Geoff Parkin (Newcastle University)

Using geological mapping software (Subsurface Viewer, GSI3D) to create conceptual groundwater models

Developing software to convert conceptual groundwater models into hydrological models

Developing software to visualise outputs from physically based hydrological models in GeoVisionary

Testing this workflow to examine groundwater flooding in Kilham, East Yorkshire

Project partners include the Environment Agency, BGS

 

Assessing flooding from multiple sources using a national scale modelling system:

Supervising a  PhD student (Ben Smith) funded through the DREAM DTC partnership

Improving the representation of geology within a physically based national modelling system using BGS national scale data

National scale assessment of the models ability to reproduce observed river flows and groundwater levels

Developing methodologies for identification of groundwater flooding from hydrographs.

Project partners include BGS, EA

 

A robust physically based hydrological model for Great Britain:

NERC funded PhD

Developing software, datasets and a modelling system for Great Britain

Using a physically based spatially distributed hydrological model (SHETRAN)

Developing a gridded hourly rainfall dataset

Extensive sensitivity testing of national modelling system

Assessment of model performance and relationship to catchment characteristics using affinity propagation clustering

Comparison to other national models

Climate change impact assessment using the UKCP09 weather generator

Improving the representation of groundwater within the framework

Project partners include BGS, EA, University of Zurich, University of Nottingham

 

FUNDING:

>£20,000 NERC knowledge exchange fund for analysis and development of a gridded hourly rainfall dataset

£2000 NERC public engagement award for science communication around climate change and flooding

£2000 award for public engagement from the Great North Museum

 

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7471-9988