Hannah Cloke
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+44 (0) 118 378 6974
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Professor of Hydrology
- Co-Director of Water@Reading providing strategic leadership for world-leading water and climate research.
- Research in earth system modelling, flood forecasting, and disaster risk management.
- Independent scientific advisor to government, forecasting and humanitarian agencies.
- Postgraduate research supervision and undergraduate/postgraduate teaching.
Areas of interest
- Flood forecasting, early warning systems, and anticipatory humanitarian action.
- Earth system modelling and machine learning for hydrology.
- Climate adaptation and resilience to natural hazards.
- Verification and uncertainty analysis in weather and flood prediction.
- Hydrological processes, catchment modelling, and nature-based flood management.
- Public engagement, science advice, and communicating risk
Postgraduate supervision
Professor Cloke supervises a large and diverse cohort of PhD in collaboration with operational agencies such as the Met Office, Environment Agency, ECMWF and the Red Cross Red Crescent ensuring research has real-world impact. Recent projects include:
- Using Deep Learning to Model River Discharge.
- Forecasting rainfall impacts on bathing water quality.
- Nature-based solutions for flood resilience.
- Evaluating ensemble forecasts of tropical cyclones.
- Urban and Transboundary Flood risk in India.
- Unravelling the production and distribution of drought risk in South Africa.
- New monitoring systems for river water quality and extreme weather events.
- Coastal resilience from meteotsunami.
Research projects
Recent research projects include:
- EVOFLOOD The Evolution of Global Flood Risk. UKRI NERC Large Grant.
- INFLOW: Improved flood anticipation on the White Nile, East Africa. UK-Canada Climate Adaptation and Resilience Programme.
- REPRESA: Strengthening resilience to tropical cyclones in Southern Africa. UK-Canada Climate Adaptation and Resilience Programme.
- Advancing hydrology-informed earth system prediction with Machine Learning. Advancing the Frontiers of Earth System Prediction (AFESP) Programme, University of Reading & ECMWF.
Background
Professor Dr Hannah L. Cloke OBE is an internationally recognised hydrologist specialising in floods, climate extremes, and disaster risk reduction. She is a Research Fellow at the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), where she develops innovations in land surface modelling, flood forecasting, and climate applications of weather prediction. She has strong international partnerships and provides independent science advice across government, forecasting centres, humanitarian organisations, and industry. She works with news media and the entertainment industry on climate, water and environmental issues.
Her awards include an OBE for services to flood forecasting (2019), the EGU Plinius Medal (2018), the GEO SDG Prize (2021), and the BHS President’s Prize (2019).
She studied Geography (BSc, 1999) and Hydrology (PhD, 2003) at the University of Bristol, and has held positions at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, King’s College London, and Uppsala University. She joined Reading in 2012.
Hannah is co-located in the University of Reading Department of Meteorology.
Her awards include an OBE for services to flood forecasting (2019), the EGU Plinius Medal (2018), the GEO SDG Prize (2021), and the BHS President’s Prize (2019).
She studied Geography (BSc, 1999) and Hydrology (PhD, 2003) at the University of Bristol, and has held positions at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, King’s College London, and Uppsala University. She joined Reading in 2012.
Hannah is co-located in the University of Reading Department of Meteorology.