Rising waters, resilient future: rethinking the global flood crisis

Paul Bates is Professor of Hydrology at the University of Bristol where he specialises in the science of flooding.  He develops new numerical solutions to the Shallow Water equations and combines these with satellite and airborne data to advance our fundamental understanding of flood dynamics and reduce threats to life and economic losses worldwide.  His work is used by multiple researchers, NGOs, multi-national companies and insurers to manage flood hazard and risk.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the American Geophysical Union, a double winner of the Lloyd's of London Science of Risk prize and in 2019 was made a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to flood risk management.

Rebecca Hale is a Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, where she leads the Watershed Science Laboratory. Trained as an ecosystem ecologist, her research addresses the interfaces of biogeochemistry, hydrology, and society at local to regional scales, using tools from ecosystem ecology, environmental chemistry, geography, and environmental social sciences. Much of her research has focused on the historical development of urban stormwater and flood management and the consequences of past and current infrastructure development for urban watershed hydrology and water quality.