Professor Simon Dadson

MA (Oxford); MSc (British Columbia); PhD (Cambridge)

I hold an MA from the University of Oxford, an MSc from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. I am an Honorary Fellow of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology where I lead the Hydro-JULES project that combines a three-dimensional model of the surface and subsurface water cycle with weather and climate models to predict future floods, droughts and water scarcity.

I served as Academic Director of Oxford's MSc in Water Science Policy and Management between 2012 and 2020. It is the UK's leading graduate programme in its field, and has trained over 300 graduate students from 55 countries worldwide, 57% of whom are women. Four out of five alumni have gone on to work in the water sector, at organizations such as the World Bank, the European Commission, the OECD, the United Nations, DfID, Defra and USAID; private practice firms such as McKinsey, Arup, AECOM, Halcrow and Mott MacDonald; and academia, at Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, ETH Zürich and Oxford.

I teach the physical geography core papers, and Climate Impacts and Adaptations

I am Professor in Physical Geography at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Christ Church. My research focuses on climate change, hydrology and Earth surface processes. I have published widely in the fields of climate change, hydrology and Earth surface processes, in leading scientific journals such as Nature, Science, Geophysical Research Letters, Proceedings of the Royal Society, and Water Resources Research. I authored the book Statistical Analysis of Geographical Data, published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2017, as part of an initiative to improve the teaching of statistics to undergraduate geographers. My research has been featured in the print and broadcast media, including in The Times and on BBC Radio 4.

I am regularly called upon to give advice to governments and national and international institutions around the world. In past projects, I have quantified the effects of climate change on river flows and water resources availability for the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs. In work funded by the Department for International Development, I have integrated a river flow model into the Met Office's regional climate model to enable developing countries to predict the effects of climate change on flood and drought risk. 

I am lead author of the Oxford Martin School Floods Restatement, which evaluated the scientific evidence base for natural flood management in the UK. I serve as a member of the OECD Global Water Partnership Task Force on Water Security, Risk and Growth. I am a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading.