Professor Jim Hall

Professor Jim Hall FREng worked in the UK and internationally as a coastal engineer before embarking on an academic career. He developed the theoretical basis for the flood risk assessment methods that are now widely used in the UK and internationally and in 2004 was awarded the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Robert Alfred Carr Prize for his work.

Professor Hall was a coordinating lead author in the Office of Science and Technology’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 was also responsible for the analysis of uncertainties in the modelling 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, and in 2010 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Professor Hall’s work on coastal cliff erosion has yielded a suite of prediction models, which in 2001 were recognised with the ICE’s George Stephenson Medal and the Frederick Palmer Prize. The work is now central to the Tyndall Centre’s Regional Coastal Simulator, providing a new generation of tools for sustainable coastal management.

Professor 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.