Dr Caspar Hewett joins the SloWater Team
The SloWaters research team welcomes Dr Caspar Hewett who joins us as a research fellow.
Dr Hewett is a lecturer in Computational Hydraulics and Degree Programme Director for the EuroAquae+ Programme in School of Engineering, Newcastle University with over 30 years of management, research and consultancy experience in academia and industry. His key interests lie in transdisciplinary applied research, development and use of mathematical models of processes, decision support tools and co-generation of knowledge with multiple stakeholders. His current research focuses on interventions in the landscape to increase water resilience by reducing flooding, drought and diffuse pollution, addressing key knowledge gaps regarding hydraulic behaviour of features such as leaky barriers using a combination of physical and mathematical modelling.
His research has had significant impact including: devising a hydrological multi-scale framework for decision support adopted by UNESCO Hydrology for Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) programme (Hewett et al., 2009, 2010); and conceiving the Decision Support Matrix (DSM) approach, producing tools that allow land use planners and farmers to investigate different land management practices to reduce diffuse pollution, flooding and soil erosion (Hewett et al. 2004, 2016, 2018). This work included working with stakeholders in the UK, the Balkans, the USA and South Africa, which contributed to the high impact, requiring broad engagement with sustainable water resource management and issues such as water scarcity. DSMs such as the Floods and Agriculture Risk Matrix (FARM) and CAVERTI tool (Communicating And Visualizing Erosion-associated Risks To Infrastructure) have been widely used by Defra, the Environment Agency (EA) and Rivers Trusts.
He has published on Runoff Attenuation Features (RAFs), Nature Based Solutions (NBS), Catchment Systems Engineering (CSE), mathematical and physical modelling of leaky barriers, decision support tools for reducing soil erosion, flooding and diffuse pollution from farming and hydrological frameworks to support decision making.
View his full profile here.
