Dr Christopher White

Reader

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Contact

Personal statement

Dr Chris White is an Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research and the Head of the Centre for Water, Environment, Sustainability and Public Health at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. The Centre undertakes fundamental and applied research that provides novel solutions to some of the most pressing global environmental challenges, including net zero and the circular economy, renewable energy, water and waste, environmental health, and climate resilience.

As a Reader (Associate Professor), he leads the Engineering for Extremes research group that focuses on improving the understanding of extreme weather events and hydro-meteorological hazards such as floods and droughts, focused on complex multi-hazard interactions and cross-sectoral cascading physical and societal impacts in a changing climate.

His research interests are cross-disciplinary, including the emerging fields of multi-hazard risks, compound events and cascading impacts, impact-based forecasting, the application of climate services for improved decision-making and climate resilience, and the prediction and application of predictions on extended-range subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) and climatic timescales. 

He leads several projects including the multi-hazard interactions and cascading impacts work package of the MEDiate (‘Multi-hazard and risk-informed system for enhanced local and regional disaster risk management’) project, funded by the Horizon Europe programme of the European Commission. He was also on the Management Committee of the recent European COST Action CA17109 on compound events. He also co-leads the applications sub-project of the World Meteorological Organization’s WWRP/WCRP S2S Prediction Project.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in research or knowledge exchange collaborations or doing a PhD under my supervision.

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Publications

Application of Boruta algorithms as a robust methodology for performance evaluation of CMIP6 general circulation models for hydro- climatic studies
Lawal I M, Bertram D, White C J, Kutty S R M, Hassan I, Jagaba A H
Theoretical and Applied Climatology Vol 153, pp. 113-135 (2023)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04466-5
Compound extreme hourly rainfall preconditioned by heatwaves most likely in the mid and high latitudes
Sauter Christoph, Fowler Hayley J, Westra Seth, Ali Haider, Peleg Nadav, White Christopher J
Weather and Climate Extremes Vol 40 (2023)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2023.100563
Consideration of compound drivers and impacts in the disaster risk reduction cycle
van den Hurk Bart JJM, White Christopher J, Ramos Alexandre M, Ward Philip J, Martius Olivia, Olbert Indiana, Roscoe Kathryn, Goulart Henrique MD, Zscheischler Jakob
iScience Vol 26 (2023)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106030
Temporally-compounding heatwave–heavy rainfall events in Australia
Sauter Christoph, White Christopher J, Fowler Hayley J, Westra Seth
International Journal of Climatology Vol 43, pp. 1050-1061 (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7872
A review of early severe weather applications of high‐resolution regional reanalysis in Australia
Fox‐Hughes Paul, Su Chun‐Hsu, Eizenberg Nathan, White Christopher, Steinle Peter, Jakob Doerte, Black Mitchell, Dowdy Andrew, Brown Andrew, Nathan Rory, Acharya Suwash Chandra
Meteorological Applications Vol 29 (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1002/met.2087
A framework to assess the impact of flooding on the release of microplastics from waste management facilities
Ponti Marta G, Allen Deonie, White Christopher J, Bertram Doug, Switzer Christine
Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances Vol 7 (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hazadv.2022.100105

More publications

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Research Interests

My research focuses on natural hazards (including floods, droughts and heatwaves), surface water hydrology and resources, risk management and climate change resilience. I specialise in understanding natural hazards and risk from both physical causative and impacts perspectives, centred on the understanding, modelling and prediction of extreme weather events (in particular, hydrological prediction) on both the extended-range 'subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S)' (e.g. weeks to months) and climate timescales (e.g. up to the end of the century) using regional high-resolution and global climate projections.

Much of my research involves working with end-users to make climate, weather and natural hazards science and information more usable though the exploration of improved applications, communication and promotion of appropriate risk information in support of resource management, emergency management and disaster risk reduction activities.

I am always keen to talk to potential students, collaborators and industry partners about future projects and opportunities.  

Professional Activities

Strath Methods series of seminars
Invited speaker
1/9/2022
Developing a Subseasonal-to-Seasonal Forecasting System for Hydropower Reservoirs in Scotland
Contributor
30/4/2021

More professional activities

Projects

Cross-disciplinary research for Discovery Science (NERC Discipline Hopping)
White, Chris (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2023
Multi-hazard and risk-informed system for enhanced local and regional disaster risk management (MEDiate Horizon Europe CL3-2021-DRS-01)
White, Chris (Principal Investigator) Douglas, John (Principal Investigator) Tubaldi, Enrico (Co-investigator)
European Commission - Horizon 2020: £385,658.00
01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2025
Multi-hazard and risk-informed system for enhanced local and regional disaster risk management (MEDiate Horizon Europe CL3-2021-DRS-01)
White, Chris (Principal Investigator) Douglas, John (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2025
Low-cost sensor system for enhanced bridge flood resilience (TRIG)
Tubaldi, Enrico (Principal Investigator) Patelli, Edoardo (Co-investigator) White, Chris (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2022
RAMOBRIS Risk Assessment and MOnitoring for BRidges under Scour hazard (MSCA IF 2020)
Tubaldi, Enrico (Principal Investigator) White, Chris (Co-investigator)
07-Jan-2022 - 06-Jan-2024
Discipline Hopping for Environmental Solutions
White, Chris (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2022

More projects

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Contact

Dr Christopher White
Reader
Civil and Environmental Engineering

Email: chris.white@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 4366