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Meet the Editors

David Balmforth
Editor-in-Chief

David Balmforth is a Technical Director for Flooding and Climate Change Adaptation Strategies with the International Engineering Company MWH. He has 35 year of experience in urban drainage, and is currently working on flooding and climate change projects in Europe and North America. Formerly an academic, David has an extensive publications record. He is a Fellow of CIWEM and a Director of the Construction Industry Research and Information Association.

Eve Gruntfest
Associate Editor

Eve is professor emeritus in Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs after 27 years in the department. Her research in the field of natural hazard mitigation has focused on flash floods and warning systems.
Since 2005 her work has focused on changing the culture of physical science to be more inclusive of stakeholder needs and interdisciplinary. She is building capacity, especially among early career scientists and practitioners, to integrate social science into meteorology and hydrology. In 2008 she launched a new initiative called SSWIM – Social Science Woven into Meteorology.  She’s working ¼ time at the University of Oklahoma on SSWIM. Since 2005 her passion has been for developing the WAS *IS  movement (www.sip.ucar.edu/wasis) - Weather and Society Integrated Studies. As of November 2008 there are now 172 WAS * ISers.

Jim Hall
Associate Editor

Jim Hall is Professor of Earth Systems Engineering in Newcastle University. Professor Hall worked in the UK and internationally as a coastal engineer before embarking on an academic career pioneering new uncertainty handling and decision-support tools for flood and coastal risk analysis. He has been instrumental in the development of modern systems-based approaches to flood risk management in the UK. His work on reliability of flood defence infrastructure has led to a several new probabilistic methods. His research now extends to the impacts of climate change and engineering adaptation to climate change, and he is Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Paul Samuels
Associate Editor

Paul Samuels has had an active career in river management, working on projects in UK, Ireland, France, Romania, Jordan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Hong Kong and China.  Paul has undertaken research for the European Commission, the British Government and the Environment Agency on risk assessment, climate change, catchment management and mathematical modelling of river flows.    He is the coordinator of FLOODsite, the largest-ever European research project on flood risk management and is a member of the European “Working Group F” for the new EU Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks.  Paul is a Technical Director at HR Wallingford and a Visiting Industrial Professor at the University of Bristol.  He is a Member of CIWEM and the Institution of Civil Engineers and is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

Jochen Schanze
Associate Editor

Jochen Schanze is Head of the Research Area “Environmental Risks” at the Leibniz Institute of Regional and Ecological Development, University Lecturer at the Technische Universität Dresden and Scientific Coordinator and Member of the Board of Directors of the Dresden Flood Research Center. Research and teaching fields are theories and methodologies of risk management and environmental development. Major interest refers to the integration of knowledge and methods from natural and social science to support decision making and strategic planning. Thematic focus lies on flood risk management and adaptation to climate change. As author and editor he published more than 120 papers and books. He is assigned as adviser of several national, European and international institutions. Currently he is also vice-chairman of the working group “Climate change and spatial development” of the German Academy of Spatial Research and Planning (ARL).


Kaoru Takara
Associate Editor

Professor of Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) in Kyoto University, Japan since 1998. He has been very active in hydrology and water resources areas especially in rainfall-runoff analysis, modelling and forecasting as well as flood control and disaster management. He has been working for the UNESCO-IHP Regional Steering Committee for Southeast Asia and the Pacific as Secretary since 1999 and the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) as Executive Director. He was awarded twice by the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) for his research papers on frequency analysis of hydrological extreme events (2000) and flood forecasting system in the Yodo river basin (2006). The journal expects him to play an important role as an Associate Editor who can invite and coordinate various flood risk management papers from Asia and the Pacific region through his wide coverage of international networks.