General Profile

Professor Jim Hall is Director of the Environmental Change Institute, Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks in the School of Geography and the Environment, a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Engineering Science and fellow of Linacre College. His research focuses upon management of climate-related risks in infrastructure systems, in particular relating to flooding, coastal erosion and water scarcity. He moved to the University of Oxford in 2011 having previously held academic positions in Newcastle University and the University of Bristol.

Jim worked in the UK and internationally as a coastal engineer before embarking on an academic career pioneering new uncertainty handling and decision-support methods for flood and coastal risk analysis. He developed the theoretical basis for the flood risk assessment methods that are now widely used in the UK and internationally. Jim was a coordinating lead author in the OST’s Foresight project on Flood and Coastal Defence, which analysed risks and responses to flooding and coastal erosion in the UK over the period 2030-2100. He also developed the framework for uncertainty analysis in appraisal of options for protecting London from flooding over the 21st Century, as part of the Environment Agency’s Thames Estuary 2100 project. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Flood Risk Management, member of the ESRA Technical Committee on Safety from Natural Hazards and was until 2009 chairman of the International Association of Hydraulic Research committee on Probabilistic Methods. In 2010 Jim Hall was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering "for his contribution to the development of methods for flood risk analysis, which underpin approaches for flood risk management in the UK and internationally."

Jim has worked extensively on application of generalized theories of probability to civil engineering and environmental systems, including random set theory, the theory of imprecise probabilities and info-gap theory. The work has been particularly fruitful in the analysis of uncertainties relating to global climate modelling, yielding the only paper on imprecise probability theory cited in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report and leading to two recent publications in PNAS.

In recent years Jim has played an increasingly high profile role in relation to engineering and climate change, with a particular emphasis on adaptation to climate change in urban areas and infrastructure systems. Jim was a Contributing Author to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Amongst other projects, he has managed the UK programme Sustaining Knowledge for a Changing Climate and was until 2010 Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, coordinating the Tyndall Centre’s research programme on climate change and cities, which yielded a highly innovative integrated assessment of climate change adaptation and mitigation in London. Jim Hall is the engineer on the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK independent Committee on Climate Change which was brought into being by the 2008 Climate Change Act. He now leads the UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium, which is funded by a £4.7million Programme Grant for EPSRC and is developing and demonstrating a new generation of system simulation models and tools to inform analysis, planning and design of national infrastructure.

Current research interests

1. Flood risk analysis and management. Broad scale flood risk analysis. Reliability analysis of flood defence systems. Advanced sampling based methods. Impacts of climate change and socio-economic change on flood risk. Robust flood risk management decisions under uncertainty.
2. Coastal cliff recession prediction and appraisal. Simplified process-based modelling of coastal system evolution over extended time and space scales. Stochastic simulation of coastal cliff recession. Use of probabilistic information in coastal management. Impacts of sea level rise.
3. Impacts of climate change on infrastructure systems and in cities. Infrastructure systems reliability and interdependence. Engineering adaptation to global change. Integrated assessment of long term change in urban areas.
4. Uncertainty representation in modelling and risk analysis of engineering systems. Random set and imprecise probability theories. Sensitivity analysis and model calibration.
5. Decision support tools for infrastructure systems. Decision analysis. Robust decision making under uncertainty. Info-gap theory. Decision support for futures and scenarios analysis.

Current research projects

• EPSRC (EP/I01344X/1) UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium: Long term dynamics of interdependent infrastructure systems
• EPSRC (EP/G061254/1) ARCADIA: Adaptation and Resilience in Cities: Analysis and Decision making using Integrated Assessment
• NERC (NE/G008787/1) Catchment change network: A professional development platform for decision-making for adaptation and uncertain environmental change
• EPSRC (EP/F020511/1): Flood Risk Management Consortium, Phase 2

Selected research publications

• Hall, J.W., Lempert, R.J., Keller, K., Hackbarth, A., Mijere, c. and McInerney, D.J. (2012) Robust Climate Policies Under Uncertainty: A Comparison of Robust Decision Making and Info-Gap Methods Society for Risk Analysis. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01802.x
• Harvey, H., Hall, J.W. and Peppé, R. Computational decision analysis for flood risk management in an uncertain future, Hydroinformatics, (2011) doi:10.2166/hydro.2011.055.
• Hall, J.W., Watts, G., Keil, M., de Vial, L., Street, R., Conlan, K., O’Connell, P.E., Beven, K.J. and Kilsby, C.G. Towards risk-based water resources planning in England and Wales, Water and Environment Journal, (2011) doi:10.1111/j.1747-6593.2011.00271.x.
• Hall, J.W., Manning, L.J. and Hankin, R.S. Bayesian calibration of a flood inundation model using spatial data, Water Resources Research, 47 (2011), W05529, doi:10.1029/2009WR008541.
• Walsh, C.L., Dawson, R.J., Hall, J.W., Barr, S.L., Batty, M., Bristow, A., Carney, S., Dagoumas, A., Alistair Ford, A.C., Harpham, C., Tight, M. Watters, H., Zanni, A. Assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities. Urban Design and Planning. 164(2) (2011): 75-84.
• Hall, J.W., How safe is safe enough? Editorial, Journal of Flood Risk Management, 4(4) (2011): 271-272.
• Hall, J. (2011) Policy: A changing climate for insurance. Nature Climate Change 1, pp248-250. doi:10.1038/nclimate1173
• Dawson, R.J., Ball, T., Werritty, J., Werritty, A., Hall J.W. and Roche, N., Assessing the effectiveness of non-structural flood management measures under conditions of socio-economic and environmental change, Global Environmental Change, (2011) doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.01.013.
• Walkden, M.J.A. and Hall, J.W. A mesoscale predictive model of the evolution and management of a soft rock coast, Journal of Coastal Research, 27(3) (2011): 529-543.
• Mokrech, M., Hanson, S., Nicholls, R., Wolf, J., Walkden, M., Fontaine, C., Nicholson-Cole, S., Jude, S., Leake, J., Stansby, P., Watkinson, A., Rounsevell, M., Lowe, J. and Hall, J.W., The Tyndall Coastal simulator, Journal of Coastal Conservation Planning and Management, (2010) DOI:10.1007/s11852-009-0083-6.
• Hall, J.W. and Pidgeon, N. A systems view of climate change, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 27(3) (2010): 243-253.
• Beck, M.B., Jiang, J., Feng, S., Villarroel Walker, R., Osidele, O., Lin, Z., Demir, I. and Hall, J.W, Re-engineering cities as forces for good in the environment: Coping with climate change, Engineering Sustainability, 163(1) (2010): 31-46.
• Merz, B., Hall, J.W., Disse M. and Schumann, A. Fluvial flood risk management in a changing world, Hydrology and Earth Systems Science, 10 (2010): 509-527.
• Hine, D and Hall, J.W. Information-gap analysis of flood model uncertainties and regional frequency analysis, Water Resources Research, 46 (2010): W01514.
• Hall, J.W, Boyce, S.M., Wang, Y., Dawson, R.J., Tarantola, S. and Saltelli, A. Sensitivity analysis of hydraulic models. J Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, 135(11) (2009): 959-969.
• Manning, L.J., Hall, J.W., Fowler, H.J., Kilsby, C.G. and Tebaldi, C. Using probabilistic climate change information from a multi-model ensemble for water resources assessment, Water Resources Research, 45 (2009): W11411.
• Glendinning, S., Hall, J.W. and Manning, L.J. Asset-management strategies for infrastructure embankments, Engineering Sustainability, 162(2) (2009): 111-120.
• Buijs, F.A., Hall, J.W., Sayers, P.B. and Van Gelder, P.H.A.J.M. Time-dependent reliability analysis of flood defences. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 94(12) (2009): 1942-1953.
• 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. Integrated analysis of risks of coastal flooding and cliff erosion under scenarios of long term change, Climatic Change, 95(1-2) (2009): 249-288.
• Kriegler, E., Hall, J.W., Held, H., Dawson, R.J. and Schellnhuber, H.J. Imprecise probability assessment of tipping points in the climate system, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(13) (2009): 5041-5046.
• Lonsdale, K.G., Downing, T.E., Nicholls, R.J., Parker, D., Vafeidis, A.T., Dawson, R.J. and Hall, J.W. Plausible responses to the threat of rapid sea-level rise for the Thames Estuary, Climatic Change, 91(1-2) (2008): 145-169.
• Dawson, R.J., Speight, L., Hall, J.W., Djordjevic, S., Savic, D. and Leandro J. Attribution of flood risk in urban areas, Hydroinformatics, 10(4) (2008): 275-288.
• Hall, J.W. and Solomatine, D. A framework for uncertainty analysis in flood risk management decisions, J. River Basin Management, 6(2) (2008): 85-98.
• Harvey, D.P., Peppé, R. and Hall, J.W. Reframe: a framework supporting flood risk analysis, J. River Basin Management, 6(2) (2008): 163-174.
• Liang, Q., Du, G., Hall, J.W. and Borthwick, A.G.L. Flood inundation modelling with an adaptive quadtree grid shallow water equation solver, J. Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, 134(11) (2008): 1603-1610.
• Marashi, S.E., Davis, J.P. and Hall, J.W., Combination methods and conflict handling in evidential theories. International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems, 16 (3) (2008): 337-369.
• Manning, L.J., Hall, J.W., Kilsby, C.G., Glendinning, S. and Anderson, M.G. Spatial analysis of the reliability of transport networks subject to rainfall-induced landslides. Hydrological Processes, 22(17): (2008) 3349 - 3360.
• Lenton, T.M., Held, H., Kriegler, E., Hall, J.W., Lucht, W., Rahmstorf, S. and Schellnhuber, H.J. Tipping elements in the Earth System. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(6) (2008): 1786–1793.
• Hall, J.W. and O’Connell, P.E. Earth Systems Engineering: turning vision into action, Civil Engineering, 160(3) (2007): 114-122.
• Goodess, C.M., Hall, J.W., Best, M., Betts, R., Cabantous, L., Jones, P.D., Kilsby, C.G., Pearman, A. and Wallace, C. Climate scenarios and decision making under uncertainty, Built Environment, 33(1) (2007): 10-30.
• Hall, J.W., Fu, G. and Lawry, J. Imprecise probabilities of climate change: aggregation of fuzzy scenarios and model uncertainties, Climatic Change, 81(3-4) (2007): 265-281.
• Dickson, M.E., Walkden, M.J.A. and Hall, J.W. Systemic impacts of climatic change on an eroding coast over the 21st century, Climatic Change, 81(2) (2007): 141-166.
• Hall, J.W., Dawson, R.J., Manning, L.J., Walkden, M.J.A., Dickson, M.E. and Sayers, P.B. Managing changing risks to infrastructure systems, Civil Engineering, 159 (Special Issue 2) (2006) 21-27.
• Dawson, R.J. and Hall, J.W. Adaptive importance sampling for risk analysis of complex infrastructure systems, Proc. Royal Soc. A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 462(2075) (2006) 3343–3362.
• Evans, E.P., Hall, J.W., Penning-Rowsell, E.C., Sayers, P.B., Thorne, C.R., and Watkinson, A. Future flood risk management in the UK, Water Management, ICE, 159 (2006) 53-61.
• Hall, J.W., Sayers, P.B., Walkden, M.J.A. and Panzeri, M. Impacts of climate change on coastal flood risk in England and Wales: 2030-2100. Phil. Trans. Royal Society, A 364 (2006) 1027–1049.
• Hamm, N.A., Hall, J.W. and Anderson, M.G. Variance based sensitivity analysis of the probability of hydrologically induced slope instability, Computers and Geosciences, 32(6) (2006) 803-817.
• Hall, J.W. Uncertainty-based sensitivity indices for imprecise probabilities. Reliability Engineering and Systems Safety, 91(10-11) (2006) 1443–1451.
• Dawson, R.J., Hall, J.W., Sayers, P.B., Bates, P.D. and Rosu, C. Sampling-based flood risk analysis for fluvial dike systems, Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Analysis, 19(6) (2005) 388-402.
• Bates, P.D., Dawson, R.J., Hall, J.W., Horritt, M.S., Nicholls, R.J., Wicks, J. and Hassane, M.A.A.M. Simplified two-dimensional modelling of coastal flooding for risk assessment and planning, Coastal Engineering, 52(9) (2005) 793-810.
• Dawson, R.J., Hall, J.W., Bates, P.D. and Nicholls, R.J. Quantified analysis of the probability of flooding in the Thames Estuary under imaginable worst case sea-level rise scenarios, International Journal of Water Resources Development, 21(4) (2005) 577-591.
• Hall, J.W., Twyman, C. and Kay, A. Influence diagrams for representing uncertainty in climate-related propositions. Climatic Change, 69 (2005) 343-365.
• Walkden, M.J.A. and Hall, J.W. A predictive mesoscale model of soft shore erosion and profile development, Coastal Engineering, 52(6) (2005): 535-563.
• Hall, J.W., Sayers, P.B and Dawson, R.J. National-scale assessment of current and future flood risk in England and Wales, Natural Hazards, 36 (2005) 147-164.
• Hall, J.W., Tarantola, S., Bates, P.D. and Horritt M.S. Distributed sensitivity analysis of flood inundation model calibration, J. Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, 131(2) (2005) 117-126.
• Rubio, E., Hall, J.W. and Anderson, M.G. Uncertainty analysis in a slope hydrology and stability model using probabilistic and imprecise information, Computers and Geotechnics, 31 (2004) 529-536.
• Hall, J.W. and Lawry, J. Generation, combination and extension of random set approximations to coherent lower and upper probabilities. Reliability Engineering and System Safety. 85(1-3) (2004) 89-101.
• Hall, J.W., Rubio, E. and Anderson, M.G. Random sets of probability measures in slope hydrology and stability analysis. ZAMM: Journal of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, 84(10–11) (2004) 710-720.
• Lawry, J., Hall, J.W. and Bovey, R. Fusion of expert and learnt knowledge in a framework of fuzzy labels. Int. J. Approximate Reasoning, 36 (2004) 151-198.
• Hall, J.W., le Masurier, J.W., Baker-Langman, E.A., Davis, J.P. and Taylor, C.A. A decision-support methodology for performance-based asset management. Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 21(1) (2004) 51-75.
• Dawson, R.J., Hall, J.W. and Davis, J.P. A performance-based decision-support process for flood defence asset management. Water Management, ICE, 157(WM1) (2004) 35-44.
• Hall, J.W., Evans, E.P., Penning-Rowsell, E.C., Sayers, P.B., Thorne, C.R. and Saul, A.J. Quantified scenarios analysis of drivers and impacts of changing flood risk in England and Wales: 2030-2100. Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards, 5(3-4) (2003) 51-65.
• Hall, J.W. Handling uncertainty in the hydroinformatic process. Hydroinformatics, 5(4) (2003) 215-232.
• Hall, J.W. and Lawry, J. Fuzzy label methods for constructing imprecise limit state functions. Structural Safety, 28(4) (2003) 317-341.
• Hall, J.W., Dawson, R.J., Sayers, P.B., Rosu, C., Chatterton, J.B. and Deakin, R. A methodology for national-scale flood risk assessment. Water and Maritime Engineering, ICE, 156(3) (2003) 235-247.
• Hall, J.W., Meadowcroft, I.C., Sayers, P.B. and Bramley, M.E. Integrated flood risk management in England and Wales. Natural Hazards Review, ASCE, 4(3) (2003) 126-135.
• Davis, J.P. and Hall, J.W. A software supported process for assembling evidence and handling uncertainty in decision-making. Decision Support Systems, 35(3) (2003) 415-433.
• Lee, E.M., Meadowcroft, I.C., Hall, J.W. and Walkden, M.J.A. Coastal landslide activity: A probabilistic simulation model. Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, 61(4) (2002) 347-355.
• Sayers, P.B., Hall, J.W. and Meadowcroft, I.C. Towards risk-based flood hazard management in the UK. Civil Engineering, ICE, 150(1) (2002) 36-42.
• Hall, J.W. A contingency approach to choice. Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 19(2) (2002) 87-118.
• Hall, J.W., Meadowcroft, I.C., Lee, E.M. and van Gelder, P.H.A.J.M. Stochastic simulation of episodic soft coastal cliff recession. Coastal Engineering, 46(3) (2002) 159-174.
• Lee, E.M., Hall, J.W. and Meadowcroft, I.C. Coastal cliff recession: The use of probabilistic prediction methods. Geomorphology, 40(3-4) (2001) 253-269.
• Hall, J.W., Cruickshank, I.C. and Godfrey, P.S. Software-supported risk management for the construction industry. Civil Engineering, ICE, 144 (2001) 42-48.
• Hall, J.W. and Davis, J.P. Sources and implications of uncertainty for coastal managers in the UK. Water and Environmental Management, 15(2) (2001) 103-108.
• Hall, J.W., Lee, E.M. and Meadowcroft, I.C. Risk-based benefit assessment of coastal cliff recession. Water and Maritime Engineering, ICE, 142 (2000) 127-139.
• Hall, J.W., Blockley, D.I. and Davis, J.P. Uncertain inference using interval probability theory. Int. J. Approximate Reasoning, 19(3-4) (1998) 247-264.