Richard Dawson
| Richard Dawson FREng | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| 🏳️ Nationality | British |
| 🏫 Education |
|
| 💼 Occupation | |
| Known for | Infrastructure systems; Flood and coastal risk management; Water security; Adaptation to climate change; Earth Systems Engineering |
Richard Dawson is Professor of Earth Systems Engineering at Newcastle University in the UK. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. In 2023 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering for his work on climate change adaptation of cities and infrastructure.[1]
Education
Dawson received an MEng in Civil Engineering from the University of Bristol, with a year spent studying civil engineering in French at the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France.
His Ph.D. in flood risk management was also from the University of Bristol.[2]
Career
Dawson's research interests are in the analysis and management of risks to the built environment and infrastructure systems from extreme weather and climate change. He is known for the development and application of systems approaches to tackle these complex problems. He has stated that his interest in this area comes from when he "recognised that the codes and historical methods that have enabled so much in the past are not always suitable in this rapidly changing world because they often fail to consider the wider interactions between engineering systems and altering environmental and socio-economic conditions."[3]
Dawson moved to Newcastle University in 2004. He was made Professor of Earth Systems Engineering in 2012, recognising his contribution to the analyze, design, engineering and management of complex environmental systems, a discipline known as Earth Systems Engineering and Management. In 2020 he was appointed as the first Director of Research for the School of Engineering in 2020. He has been a member of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research since 2003, holding a number of roles in this time including as an Associate Director. He has been a visiting researcher at Arizona State University, the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University (funded by a short term fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), and was a Turing Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute (2018-2021).[4]
He served the maximum allowed two full terms as a member of the Committee on Climate Change[5] from 2019-2025, supports the National Infrastructure Commission as an expert on Climate Resilience[6], and was a Lead Author[7] and Coordinating Lead Author[8] for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 6th Assessment Report.
Dawson was one of five "eminent scientists" to feature on the BBC Radio 4 series Climate Change and Me where he described his career and motivation to improve how engineers tackle climate change. He has delivered evidence to a number of parliamentary inquiries related to infrastructure resilience, flooding, and climate change.[9]
Honours and Awards
- Led the team that won the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Newcastle University's research programme of global excellence in water security (2023) [10]
- As a co-author of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report he is a co-laureate the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity (2022) [11]
- Aon foundation Jose Maria Sarriegi Major Catastrophe Research Award - in collaboration with co-authors - for work on: “How are cities planning to respond to climate change? Assessment of local climate plans from 885 cities in the EU-28” (2019) [12]
- Five year EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship (2010-2015) [13]
- Lloyds of London Science of Risk prize, Overall Winner, for “Integrated analysis of risks of coastal flooding and cliff erosion under scenarios of long term change” (2012) [14]
- Institution of Civil Engineers Northeast - Robert Stephenson Award, with Royal Haskoning, Environment Agency, Sustainability North East, for the “Northeast Climate Change Adaptation Study” (2009)
- Institution of Civil Engineers Robert Alfred Carr Prize for “A methodology for national-scale flood risk assessment” (2004) [15]
- International Association of Hydraulic Research Young Scientists Paper Prize for “Risk based approach to beach nourishment” (1999)
Publications
A full list of Dawson's peer-reviewed publications can be found on his Google Scholar profile.[16]
- Butters, O., Robson, C., McClean, F., Glenis, V., Virgo, J., Ford, A., Iliadis, C. Dawson, R.J. (2025) An open framework for analysing future flood risk in urban areas. Environmental Modelling & Software, 185, p.106302.
- Polaine XK, Dawson RJ, Walsh CL, Amezaga J, Peña-Varón M, Lee C, Rao S (2022) Systems thinking for water security, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 39:3, 205-223. (doi: 10.1080/10286608.2022.2108806).
- Ming, X, Liang Q, Dawson RJ, Xia X, Hou J, (2022) A quantitative multi-hazard risk assessment framework for compound flooding considering hazard inter-dependencies and interactions, J. Hydrology, 607: 127477 (doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.127477).
- Haasnoot M, Winter G, Brown S, Dawson RJ, Ward PJ, Eilander D (2021) Long-term sea-level rise necessitates a commitment to adaptation: a first order assessment, Climate Risk Management, 34: 100355. (doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2021.100355).
- McClean F, Dawson RJ, Kilsby CG (2020) Implications of using Global Digital Elevation Models for Flood Risk Analysis in Cities, Water Resources Research, (doi: 10.1029/2020WR028241).
- Caparros-Midwood D, Dawson RJ, Barr S (2019) Low Carbon, Low Risk, Low Density: Resolving choices about sustainable development in cities, Cities, 89: 252-267 (doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2019.02.018).
- Reckien D, Salvia M, Heidrich O, Church JM, Pietrapertosa F, De Gregorio-Hurtado S, D'Alonzo V, Foley A, Simoes SG, Krkoska Lorencova E, Orru H, Orru K, Wejs A, Flacke J, Olazabal M, Geneletti D, Feliu E, Vasilie S, Nador C, Krook-Riekkola A, Matosovic M, Fokaides PA, Ioannou BI, Flamos A, Spyridaki N-A, Balzan MV, Fulop O, Paspaldzhiev I, Grafakos S, Dawson RJ (2018) How are cities planning to respond to climate change? Assessment of local climate plans from 885 cities in the EU-28, J. Cleaner Production, 191:207-219. (doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.03.220).
- Bai X, Dawson RJ, Ürge-Vorsatz D, Delgado GC, Barau AS, Dhakal S, Dodman D, Leonardsen L, Masson-Delmotte V, Roberts DC, Schultz S (2018) Six research priorities for cities and climate change, Nature, 555, 23-25. (doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-02409-z).
- Ürge-Vorsatz, D., Rosenzweig, C., Dawson, R. J., Sanchez Rodriguez, R., Bai, X., Barau, A. S., Seto, K., Dhakal, S. (2018) Locking in positive climate responses in cities. Nature Climate Change, 8(3), 174-177 (doi: 10.1038/s41558-018-0100-6).
- Guerreiro S, Dawson RJ, Kilsby C, Lewis E, Ford A (2018) Future heat-waves, droughts and floods in 571 European cities, Environment Research Letters. (doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaaad3).
- Pregnolato M, Ford A, Glenis V, Wilkinson S, Dawson RJ (2017) Impact of Climate Change on Disruption to Urban Transport Networks from Pluvial Flooding. ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 23(4): 04017015 (doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000372).
- Panteli, M., Pickering, C., Wilkinson, S., Dawson, R., & Mancarella, P. (2016) Power system resilience to extreme weather: Fragility modeling, probabilistic impact assessment, and adaptation measures. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 32(5), 3747-3757. (doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2016.2641463).
- Fu G, Wilkinson S, Dawson RJ (2016) A Spatial Network Model for Civil Infrastructure System Development, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 31(9): 661-680. (doi: 10.1111/mice.12204).
- Dawson RJ (2015) Handling Interdependencies in Climate Change Risk Assessment, Climate, 3(4):1079-1096. (doi:10.3390/cli3041079).
- Walsh, C., Manning, L., Burton, A., Kilsby, C., Hall, J. W., Dawson, R. J. (2015) Managing water resources in changing socio-economic and climatic conditions in the Thames basin, Hydrology and Earth Systems Sciences, 12, 8853–8889.
- Khoury M, Bullock S, Fu G, and Dawson RJ (2015) Improving measures of topological robustness in networks of networks and suggestion of a novel way to counter both failure propagation and isolation, J. Infrastructure Complexity, 2(1):1-20. (doi: 10.1186/s40551-015-0004-9).
- Dawson, R. J., Peppe, R. and Wang, M. (2011) An agent based model for risk-based flood incident management, Natural Hazards, 59(1):167-189 (doi: 10.1007/s11069-011-9745-4).
- Dawson, R. J., Dickson, M. E., Nicholls, R. J., Hall, J. W., Walkden, M. J. A., Stansby, P., Mokrech, M., Richards, J., Zhou, J., Milligan, J., Jordan, A., Pearson, S., Rees, J., Bates, P., Koukoulas, S., Watkinson, A. (2009), Integrated analysis of risks of coastal flooding and cliff erosion under scenarios of long term change, Climatic Change, 95:249–288 (doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9532-8).
- Hall, J.W., Sayers, P.B. and Dawson, R. J. (2005), National-scale assessment of current and future flood risk in England and Wales, Natural Hazards, 36(1-2): 147-164. (doi: 10.1007/s11069-004-4546-7).
- Hall, J.W., Dawson, R.J., Sayers, P.B., Rosu, C., Chatterton, J.B. and Deakin, R. (2003) A methodology for national-scale flood risk assessment. Water and Maritime Engineering, 156(3) 235-247. (doi: 10.1680/wame.2003.156.3.235).
References
- ↑ "Professor Richard Dawson FREng". Royal Academy of Engineering. 2023. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
- ↑ "Performance based management of flood defence systems".
- ↑ "Richard Dawson, Newcastle University".
- ↑ "New Turing Fellows". 15 October 2018.
- ↑ "Dawson appointed to CCC". 30 January 2019.
- ↑ "NIC Advisory Roles".
- ↑ "Cities and Infrastructure".
- ↑ "Coastal Settlements".
- ↑ "Environmental Audit Committee".
- ↑ "Performance based management of flood defence systems". 16 November 2023.
- ↑ "IPCC co-laureate of Gulbenkiand Prize". 18 Oct 2022.
- ↑ "Prize winning paper". 11 November 2019.
- ↑ "UKRI Gateway to Research". Feb 2010.
- ↑ "Lloyds Science of Risk 2012". 30 November 2012.
- ↑ "Robert Alfred Carr prize winners". 2004.
- ↑ "Google Scholar profile for Richard Dawson".
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