
Dr Ross Woods
BSc(Cant.), MComm(Cant.), PhD(W.Aust.)
Current positions
Reader in Water & Environmental Engineering
School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering
Contact
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Research interests
Keywords: Hydrology, water resources, hazards, hydroclimatology
I'm a hydrologist who is interested in quantifying all aspects of water cycle, always with an eye for the implications for infrastructure. For example, I'm interested in floods, droughts, seasonal availability of water, changes in the long term average amount of water available.
These hydrological responses are controlled by many interacting factors, including climate, topography, soils, land cover and geology. Different factors are more important in different situations. Untangling these so we understand how the hydrological cycle works is a grand challenge for hydrology.
Currently, my main research methods are large-sample analyses of hydrological data, covering countries, regions and continents. I supplement the data analysis with simple models which help quantify the relative importance of different controlling factors.
A few of my specific research themes:
- How to improve estimation of flood magnitude for ungauged catchments, by learning from the wealth of high resolution data for many flood events
- How does a shift in precipitation from snow towards rain influence the hydrological cycle
- How to understand the huge diversity of hydrological responses around the world by using scientific classification and similarity variables
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
SMARTWATER: Diagnosing controls of pollution hot spots and hot moments and their impact on catchment water quality
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Planetary boundaries of river water pollution are at risk of being breached, with dangerous consequences for human and environmental health, economic prosperity, and water security. The current paradigm for environmental…Dates
01/11/2023 to 31/10/2028
Climate Change Impacts on Surface Water and Groundwater Hydrology in Cold Regions
Principal Investigator
Dates
01/04/2017 to 31/12/2017
Publications
Selected publications
01/07/2014A precipitation shift from snow towards rain leads to a decrease in streamflow
Nature Climate Change
A Quantitative Hydrological Climate Classification Evaluated With Independent Streamflow Data
Water Resources Research
Patterns of similarity of seasonal water balances: A window into streamflow variability over a range of time scales
Water Resources Research
Stormflow generation: A meta-analysis of field evidence from small, forested catchments
Water Resources Research
Global bimodal precipitation seasonality: a systematic overview
International Journal of Climatology
Recent publications
04/05/2026Estimating robust melt factors and temperature thresholds for snow modelling across the Northern Hemisphere
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Evaluation of high-resolution meteorological data products using flux tower observations across Brazil
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
From Noise to Signal: A Data-Driven Framework for Identifying Hot Moments in Water Quality Timeseries
Environmental Research Letters
Spatiotemporal Drivers of Runoff Event Timescales: An Event‐Based Clustering Approach Applied to 388 Catchments in the Contiguous United States
Water Resources Research




