Elizabeth Lewis

University of Manchester

Faculty, Policy Academy Fellow

I am a Senior Lecturer in Computational Hydrology at The University of Manchester. 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 think that science communication is a key duty of a researcher and so I have tried to do a lot of it! See my web page for examples of outreach work that I have done: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/staff/profile/elizabethlewis2.html

PYRAMID: Platform for dYnamic, hyper-resolution, near-real time flood Risk AssessMent Integrating repurposed and novel Data sources
– £1M NERC project led by Dr Elizabeth Lewis (PI: Prof Hayley Fowler)
– Building a dynamic flood modelling and data system.

OpenCLIM: Open CLimate IMpacts modelling framework
– £2M NERC project led by Prof Robert Nicholls
– Designed to support UK assessment of climate risks and adaptation needs, and future UK government Climate Change Risk Assessments, by developing and applying a first UK integrated assessment for climate impacts and adaptation.

Legacy wastes in the coastal zone: Environmental risks and management futures
– £2M NERC project led by Dr Adam Jarvis
– My role is to determine potential impacts of climate change on pollution risk due to legacy wastes using state-of-the-art hydrological modelling (WP3)

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.

Selected Publications

Other

Selected Publications

Other

2016

Blenkinsop, Stephen; E., Lewis; Chan, S; Fowler, H

Quality-control of an hourly rainfall dataset and climatology of extremes for the UK Journal Article

In: 2016.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@article{1635,

title = {Quality-control of an hourly rainfall dataset and climatology of extremes for the UK},

author = {Stephen Blenkinsop and Lewis E. and S Chan and H Fowler},

doi = {DOI: 10.1002/joc.4735.},

year  = {2016},

date = {2016-01-01},

abstract = {<p>Sub-daily rainfall extremes may be associated with flash flooding, particularly in urban areas but, compared with extremes on daily timescales, have been relatively little studied in many regions. This paper describes a new, hourly rainfall dataset for the UK based on ~1600 rain gauges from three different data sources. This includes tipping bucket rain gauge data from the UK Environment Agency (EA), which has been collected for operational purposes, principally flood forecasting. Significant problems in the use of such data for the analysis of extreme events include the recording of accumulated totals, high frequency bucket tips, rain gauge recording errors and the non-operation of gauges. Given the prospect of an intensification of short-duration rainfall in a warming climate, the identification of such errors is essential if sub-daily datasets are to be used to better understand extreme events. We therefore first describe a series of procedures developed to quality control this new dataset. We then analyse ~380 gauges with near-complete hourly records for 1992–2011 and map the seasonal climatology of intense rainfall based on UK hourly extremes using annual maxima, \textit{n}-largest events and fixed threshold approaches. We find that the highest frequencies and intensities of hourly extreme rainfall occur during summer when the usual orographically defined pattern of extreme rainfall is replaced by a weaker, north–south pattern. A strong diurnal cycle in hourly extremes, peaking in late afternoon to early evening, is also identified in summer and, for some areas, in spring. This likely reflects the different mechanisms that generate sub-daily rainfall, with convection dominating during summer. The resulting quality-controlled hourly rainfall dataset will provide considerable value in several contexts, including the development of standard, globally applicable quality-control procedures for sub-daily data, the validation of the new generation of very high-resolution climate models and improved understanding of the drivers of extreme rainfall.</p>},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

<p>Sub-daily rainfall extremes may be associated with flash flooding, particularly in urban areas but, compared with extremes on daily timescales, have been relatively little studied in many regions. This paper describes a new, hourly rainfall dataset for the UK based on ~1600 rain gauges from three different data sources. This includes tipping bucket rain gauge data from the UK Environment Agency (EA), which has been collected for operational purposes, principally flood forecasting. Significant problems in the use of such data for the analysis of extreme events include the recording of accumulated totals, high frequency bucket tips, rain gauge recording errors and the non-operation of gauges. Given the prospect of an intensification of short-duration rainfall in a warming climate, the identification of such errors is essential if sub-daily datasets are to be used to better understand extreme events. We therefore first describe a series of procedures developed to quality control this new dataset. We then analyse ~380 gauges with near-complete hourly records for 1992–2011 and map the seasonal climatology of intense rainfall based on UK hourly extremes using annual maxima, n-largest events and fixed threshold approaches. We find that the highest frequencies and intensities of hourly extreme rainfall occur during summer when the usual orographically defined pattern of extreme rainfall is replaced by a weaker, north–south pattern. A strong diurnal cycle in hourly extremes, peaking in late afternoon to early evening, is also identified in summer and, for some areas, in spring. This likely reflects the different mechanisms that generate sub-daily rainfall, with convection dominating during summer. The resulting quality-controlled hourly rainfall dataset will provide considerable value in several contexts, including the development of standard, globally applicable quality-control procedures for sub-daily data, the validation of the new generation of very high-resolution climate models and improved understanding of the drivers of extreme rainfall.</p>

Research Areas

Catalysing adaptation and resilience

Email: elizabeth.lewis-3@manchester.ac.uk

Elizabeth Lewis

2016

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