Catherine Sefton

Catherine is a hydrologist, specialising in intermittent and ephemeral stream research and the management and appraisal of hydrometric data. She leads on the UKCEH portfolio of projects on hydrological intermittence, including chalk bournes, and on international collaboration in this field. Her research, working in partnership with UKCEH colleagues, research collaborators, regulators, water companies and local communities, has delivered innovations in the visualisation, characterisation and modelling of hydrological intermittence. These have included: metrics to capture flowing, ponding and drying dynamics on intermittent reaches; statistical models of intermittence at catchment and national scale; assessment of the impact of drought and climate change on network contraction; and, innovations in the monitoring of hydrological and morphological dynamics.

As Data Quality Coordinator of the National River Flow Archive, Catherine also takes a lead on long-term improvements in data and metadata holdings, and on projects concerned with hydrometric network appraisal and with the application, analysis and interpretation of zero flow and peak flow data. As a member of the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme, she analyses and reports on extreme hydrological events, and is an author of the monthly Hydrological Summary.