Projects per year
Personal profile
Research Interests
Keith Beven has worked at Lancaster University for over 30 years and is now a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Lancaster Environment Centre. He is the first hydrologist to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 50 years, is the most highly cited in the field, and has published 10 books and over 450 papers. Recent books include Environmental Modelling: An Uncertain Future? (2009); a 4th Edition of Shaw’s Hydrology in Practice (with Nick Chappell and Rob Lamb, 2011) and a 2nd Edition of Rainfall-Runoff Modelling: The Primer (2012). Both Environmental Modelling and Rainfall-Runoff Modelling have been translated into Chinese
His main research interests are in hydrological modelling and understanding the prediction uncertainties associated with environmental models (see www.uncertain-future.org.uk ). He was the originator with Mike Kirkby of the TOPMODEL Concepts and the originator of the Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) methodology. GLUE has been applied to a wide variety of fields including rainfall-runoff modelling, flood inundation, water quality modelling, sediment transport, recharge and groundwater modelling, vegetation growth models, aphid populations, forest fire and tree death modelling. Current projects include leading the NERC/ScienceWise Catchment Change Management Hub project (ccmhub.net ), novel modelling of flow and transport on hillslopes and in catchments, modelling the impacts of climate and land management on flood runoff and flood frequency, nonparametric estimation of the rainfall-flow nonlinearity, and flood forecasting. He also an interest in the History of Hydrology and has created a wiki site as a resource for the hydrological community (www.history-of-hydrology.net).
His research has resulted in a number of awards including the Robert Horton Medal and Langbein Awards of the American Geophysical Union, the John Dalton Medal and Leonardo Awards of the European Geophysical Union, the IAHS/WMO/UNESCO International Hydrology Prize, the Penman and President’s Awards of the British Hydrological Society; and a DSc from Bristol University. He was also the recipient of the King of Sweden’s Environmental Guest Professorship at Uppsala University, the Francqui Foundation Chair at KU Leuven, and was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society and as a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 2017. He also still likes to try and find time to take some photographs (mostly of water on film, see www.mallerstangmagic.co.uk).
SUMMARY of research interests (100 words)
Keith Beven’s main research interests are in hydrological modelling and understanding the prediction uncertainties associated with environmental models (see www.uncertain-future.org.uk ). He is the originator of the Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) methodology which has been applied to a wide variety of fields . Current projects include leading the NERC ScienceWise Catchment Change Management Hub (ccmhub.net ), novel modelling of flow and transport on hillslopes and in catchments, and flood forecasting. He also still likes to try and find time to take some photographs (mostly of water, see www.mallerstangmagic.co.uk).
User-defined keywords
- Hydrology
- Risk and Uncertainty
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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CiFR-Lancaster (Cumbria innovative Flood Resilience)
Chappell, N. (Principal Investigator), Tych, W. (Co-Investigator) & Beven, K. (Co-Investigator)
1/03/22 → 31/03/27
Project: Research
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Working with Natural Processes Evidence Directory Update
Beven, K. (Co-Investigator) & Chappell, N. (Principal Investigator)
1/03/23 → 30/09/23
Project: Research
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R4AsH : Radar-supported Next-Generation Forecasting of Volcanic Ash Hazard
James, M. (Principal Investigator), Lane, S. (Principal Investigator), Gilbert, J. (Principal Investigator) & Beven, K. (Principal Investigator)
1/04/19 → 31/03/24
Project: Research
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Q-NFM : Quantifying the likely magnitude of nature-based flood mitigation effects across large catchments
Chappell, N. (Principal Investigator), Beven, K. (Co-Investigator), Lamb, R. (Co-Investigator), Haygarth, P. (Co-Investigator), Quinton, J. (Co-Investigator), Page, T. (Research Associate), Kretzschmar, A. (Research Associate), Hankin, B. (Researcher) & McShane, G. (Technician)
1/11/17 → 31/03/23
Project: Research
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Quantifying and Reducing Uncertainty in the Processes Controlling Tropospheric Ozone and OH
Wild, O. (Principal Investigator), Beven, K. (Co-Investigator), Young, P. (Co-Investigator) & Ryan, E. (Research Associate)
1/01/16 → 17/04/19
Project: Research
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Deep Learning, Epistemic Uncertainties and the Inexact Sciences
Beven, K., 31/03/2026, In: Hydrological Processes. 40, 3, e70489.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Open AccessFile14 Downloads (Pure) -
Estimating runoff from rainfall when computers were people (the 1915 model of Adolph F. Meyer, with discussion)
Beven, K., 1/06/2026, In: Hydrological Sciences Journal. 71, 9, p. 1725-1739 15 p.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Open Access -
Stemflows and Preferential Flows: A Historical Review and Challenges for the Future
Beven, K. & Van Stan, J. T., 31/05/2026, In: Hydrological Processes. 40, 5, e70556.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Open AccessFile4 Downloads (Pure) -
The Great Catchment Hysteresis Challenge
Beven, K. J., Mindham, D. & Chappell, N. A., 30/04/2026, In: Hydrological Processes. 40, 4, e70438.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Open AccessFile5 Downloads (Pure) -
A short history of philosophies of hydrological model evaluation and hypothesis testing
Beven, K. J., 28/02/2025, In: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water. 12, 1, e1761.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Review article › peer-review
Open Access
Datasets
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Prior ensemble of volcanic ash NAME simulations
Capponi, A. (Creator), Harvey, N. J. (Contributor), Dacre, H. F. (Contributor), Beven, K. (Contributor), Saint, C. (Contributor) & James, M. (Contributor), Lancaster University, 2021
DOI: 10.17635/lancaster/researchdata/490
Dataset
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Ensembles of volcanic ash NAME simulations (01, 03, 08)
Capponi, A. (Creator), Harvey, N. J. (Contributor), Dacre, H. F. (Contributor), Beven, K. (Contributor), Saint, C. (Creator), James, M. (Contributor) & Wells, C. (Contributor), Lancaster University, 2022
DOI: 10.17635/lancaster/researchdata/491
Dataset
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NUTCAT data for SWAT 'limits of acceptability' framework model uncertainty paper
Hollaway, M. (Creator), Beven, K. J. (Creator) & Haygarth, P. M. (Contributor), Lancaster University, 02/2018
DOI: 10.17635/lancaster/researchdata/206
Dataset
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NUTCAT data for 'Discharge and Nutrient loads' uncertainty paper.
Hollaway, M. (Creator), Beven, K. J. (Creator) & Haygarth, P. M. (Contributor), Lancaster University, 06/2018
DOI: 10.17635/lancaster/researchdata/227
Dataset
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Simulated 15-min discharge time-series and baseline simulations for the River Kent following a Natural Flood Management intervention of 'Enhanced Hillslope Storage', Sedgewick, October 2015 to January 2016
Chappell, N. (Creator), Beven, K. (Contributor), Smith, P. (Contributor) & Hankin, B. (Contributor), NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre, 9/04/2024
DOI: 10.5285/af081a90-b014-43f7-9399-c948a8b7672f., https://doi.org/10.5285/af081a90-b014-43f7-9399-c948a8b7672f.
Dataset