Professor Damian Lawler

Water is the key to life, and I have relished researching in this area. After Undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of Wales, I worked at The University of Birmingham within active hydrology, geomorphology and water science research groups for many years, before moving to Coventry University in 2013 where I am a Professor of Hydrology.  At Coventry, I co-led the REF submission for UOA7 and became co-Director of the new Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience in 2014. With substantial funding from the University in Environmental Sciences and CAWR, this will be an exciting opportunity to recruit many new staff and develop the Centre’s research portfolio, especially its four interacting Water streams: Fluvial Processes;  Hydrology, Climate and Environmental Change;  Water Quality and Pollution Dynamics;  and Urban Water.

I have been very fortunate to have worked on complex and important fluvial and hydrological research questions in the UK, Ireland, France, Iceland, Azerbaijan, Georgia, USA and Australia. Almost all of the research projects, derived publications and 15 PhD completions, have been competitively funded by NERC, EPSRC, Environment Agency, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and international organisations such as the Ireland Environmental Protection Agency, the Icelandic National Energy Authority, and overseas governments. This work has led to over 150 published papers.

I enjoyed developing the first automatic erosion monitoring system (Photo-Electronic Erosion Pin (PEEP)) system, and devising the principle of Thermal Consonance Timing for improved erosion event definition (2008), which is now built into the PEEP3T instrument used by over 30 research groups worldwide, especially in Europe, Australia and the USA, including by the US Geological Survey to address sedimentation problems in San Francisco Bay.

I developed the DOCPROBE downstream change model for river bank erosion processes and the Combined Automated, Flood, Elevation and Stream power (CAFES) model (2009). In other groups we also achieved the first experimental quantification of needle ice sediment transport effects, and developed novel chains of causality linking North Atlantic atmospheric circulation and climate change to (a) Icelandic sediment fluxes to the ocean (2003); (b) river flow changes in the UK and USA, and (c) flow teleconnections between eastern North America and Northern Europe (2006-20l4).

• Anifowose, B.A., Lawler, D.M., van der Horst, D., and Chapman, L.C. (2014) 'Evaluating interdiction of oil pipelines at river crossings using Environmental Impact Assessments'. Area 46 (1), 4-17.
• Lawler, D.M., and Walsh, R.P.D. (2014) 'River channel change, river channel pattern andchannelization'. In Encyclopaedia of Environmental Change. Ed. by Matthews, J.A. UK: SAGE Publications Ltd, 146-150
• Anifowose, B.A., Lawler, D.M., van der Horst, D., and Chapman, L.C. (2012) 'Attacks on oiltransport pipelines in Nigeria: a quantitative exploration and possible explanation of observed patterns'. Applied Geography 32, 636-651.
• Kingston, D., Hannah, D.M., Lawler, D.M., and McGregor, G.R. (2011) 'Regional classification, variability, and trends of northern North Atlantic river flow'. Hydrological Processes 25 (7), 1021-1033.
• Lawler, D.M., and Fairchild, I.J. (2010) 'Process Understanding and Modelling in Geomorphology: New Developments'. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 35, 1247-1250.
• Barker, D.M., Lawler, D.M., Knight, D.W., Morris, D.G., Davies, H.N., and Stewart, E.J. (2009) 'Longitudinal distributions of river flood power: the Combined Automated Flood, Elevation and Stream power (CAFES) methodology'. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 34 (2), 280-290.
• Kingston, D., Hannah, D.M., Lawler, D.M., and McGregor, G.R. (2009) 'Climate–river flow relationships across montane and lowland environments in northern Europe'. Hydrological Processes 23 (7), 985-996.
• Lawler, D.M. (2008) 'Advances in the continuous monitoring of erosion and deposition dynamics: Developments and applications of the new PEEP-3T system'. Geomorphology 93 (1-2), 17-39.
• Kingston, D., McGregor, G.R., Hannah, D.M., and Lawler, D.M. (2007) 'Large-Scale Climatic Controls on New England River Flow'. Journal of Hydrometeorology 8, 367-378. 
• Kingston, D., Lawler, D.M., and McGregor, G.R. (2006) 'Linkages between atmospheric circulation, climate and streamflow in the northern North Atlantic: research prospects' (https://ppg.sagepub.com/content/30/2/143). Progress in Physical Geography 30 (2), 143-174.
• Lawler, D.M., Petts, G.E., Foster, I.D.L., and Harper, S. (2006) 'Turbidity dynamics during spring storm events in an urban headwater river system: The Upper Tame, West Midlands, UK'. Science of the Total Environment 360, 109-126.
• Dixon, H., Lawler, D., and Shamseldin, A. (2006) 'Streamflow trends in western Britain'. Geophysical Research Letters 33, L19406.
• Kingston, D., McGregor, G.R., Hannah, D.M., and Lawler, D.M. (2006) 'River flow teleconnections between Europe and North America'. Geophysical Research Letters 33, 1-5.

• ReACHyN: Recent Atmospheric Change and the Hydrology of the Niger: 
A project which quantifies the temporal changes of flow patterns in the River Niger to define connections between flow changes and climate and predict oil spill travel time near oil pipeline river crossings and its variation with flow level and season.

• The Siltflux Project: This project in collaboration with University College Dublin aims to set standards for suspended sediment fluxes for the protection of sensitive catchments and biota in order to advise Ireland EPA, farmers and end-users on management solutions.