Over 200 hydrologists gathered at the University of Oxford in September for the 2024 British Hydrological Society's National Symposium. Despite the torrential rain, many of the UK Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI) team were there to showcase research across the FDRI programme and gather community feedback.

 

Gareth Old (FDRI Science Implementation Lead) convened the session on 'Observational Hydrology for Floods and Droughts' alongside Richard Amos (Welsh Water) with presentations on drone based streamflow methods, transformative hydrological observations and designing effective river flow monitoring networks. Posters from this session included seven contributions from the FDRI team including perceptual models for our three observatory catchments (Tweed, Chess and Upper Severn), end-user priorities for innovative hydrological data infrastructures and training and innovation.

Three coin counting boxes are filled with colourful counters where people have voted for their favourite workshop idea

Matt Fry (FDRI Digital lead) and Gareth Old led a community FDRI workshop to share updates from the programme, seek community feedback and allow time to connect with colleagues working on floods and droughts. The workshops were well attended with lots of engagement on how we can work together in enabling future science on floods and droughts. 

Finally, Ali Rudd (FDRI Digital and Capacity Building Manager) organised the Symposium field trip with 30 attendees enjoying a walk around key river sites in Oxford to understand the flood mechanisms within Oxford and the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme. Attendees heard from experts on the scheme including representatives from the Environment Agency, British Geological Survey and Oxford Flood Alliance.


Many thanks to all attendees for your engagement with the FDRI programme at the conference - we had a great two days and left with lots of inspiration for upcoming activities in FDRI!

 

The Symposium was organised by Gemma Coxon (BHS Events and FDRI Capacity Building Lead), Simon Dadson (Hydro-JULES Principle Investigator) and Kirstie Murphy (JBA Consulting).