Renata Romanowicz

Dr. hab. Renata J. Romanowicz

Hydrology and Hydrodynamics Department,

Institute of Geophysics Polish Academy of Sciences

Księcia Janusza 64, 01-452 Warsaw, POLAND

phone +48 22 6915852, fax +48 22 6915915

email: Romanowicz@igf.edu.pl

Scientific Background:

• M.Sc. in Automatic Control, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland. Thesis title: Nonlinear constrained optimisation methods.
• Ph.D. in Physical Sciences, Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences. Thesis title: Hierarchical control of system of storage reservoirs with stochastic inflows.
• Doctor of Science, Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Thesis title: Modelling of Environmental Processes under Uncertainty.

My work in the Institute of Geophysics, Poland, University College Dublin and Lancaster University has focused on the mathematical modelling of hydrological systems.

These included:

1. Optimal control of flood protection reservoirs with uncertain inflows, stochastic dynamic programming for reservoir regulation, hierarchical control systems.
2. Analytical and numerical modelling of infiltration and evaporation processes in the unsaturated zone for General Circulation Models, testing soil moisture codes in GCMs, stochastic analysis of surface fluxes, development of a lumped unsaturated zone model with stochastic inputs, random parameters and random initial conditions, derivation of analytical solution for Richard’s equation with variable input.
3. Research on GIS and distributed hydrological modelling: Maximum Likelihood estimation, sensitivity analysis, unsaturated zone soil moisture modelling, catchment modelling, flood routing, on-line GIS application of rainfall-flow routing model, TOPMODEL.
4. Calibration of distributed hydrological models: development of a distributed flood inundation model in FORTRAN and SIMULINK (Matlab®), Maximum Likelihood/Bayesian estimation, sensitivity analysis, methodology for on-line updating of probabilities of inundation along the river during floods.
5. Environmental Risk assessment; modelling dispersion of pollutants in air and marine environment.
6. Statistical analysis of environmental variables (EEC project, “Estimation of Human Impact In the Presence of Natural Fluctuations”) using CAPTAIN toolbox http://www.es.lancs.ac.uk/cres/captain/; applications in rainfall-flow, water quality and air pollution modelling.
7. Estimation techniques and predictive uncertainty, Data Based Mechanistic Modelling, on-line Data Assimilation techniques and forecasting.
8. Pollutant transport

Current Research Interests and related scientific achievements

Methodological:

(i) Problems of stochastic control in water resources systems, hierarchical optimisation of stochastic problems. Research in the field of stochastic and deterministic analytical models of environmental systems, linear theory of open channel flow, GIS and distributed modelling.

(ii) Maximum Likelihood estimation, sensitivity analysis, calibration of distributed models in the presence of uncertainty, predictive uncertainty.

(iii) Data assimilation techniques applied to time and spatially variable environmental processes.

(iv) Nonlinear transformations in hydrology.

(v) Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of hydrological processes, including pollutant transport.

Applications

(i) Spatial variability of Land Surface Processes; stochastic control of water storage systems; unsaturated zone modelling in the presence of uncertainty, lumped and spatially distributed models for flow, flood inundation modelling.

(ii) Data-Based Mechanistic modelling of environmental systems. This involves e.g. modelling and forecasting of rainfall-flow processes, water quality models, hydrological modelling of rainfall and flow processes and other applications.

(iii) Data assimilation techniques applied to environmental modelling (water quality, rainfall-flow and air pollution problems).

(iv) Development of on-line flood forecasting techniques and their application in Flood Forecasting and Warning Systems.

(v) Lumped parameter model simulator of flow routing applied in water management problems

(vi) Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of pollutant transport models

(vii) Influence of climatic variability on water resources at a catchment scale

Developed Tools

(i) SIMULINK TOPMODEL

(ii) FORTRAN and SIMULINK Flood Inundation Models

(iii) On-line Flood Forecasting System (River Severn: Abermule- Buildwas, UK) in MATLAB® and SIMULINK.

(iv) SIMULINK water quality model

(v) MC simulation tools in MATLAB®

INTERESTS AND HOBBIES

Outdoor activities:

Gardening, mushroom hunting, hill walking, kayaking, cross-country skiing.

Indoor activities:

- Reading- old and recent favourites: Thomas Mann, Ralf Tolkien, Ursula LeGwynn, Roger Zelezny, Haruki Murakami, Buddhism.

- Good food and wine in the company of friends.

- Drawing and painting (mainly trees)

SELECTED PAPERS

• Romanowicz, R. and M. Osuch, 2008, An Integrated Data Based Mechanistic Lowland Catchment Model for the Upper Narew, PUBLS. INST. GEOPHYS. POL. ACAD. SC., E-9 (405), 57-74
• Kiczko, A., R. J. Romanowicz and J. J. Napiorkowski, 2008, Integration of Reservoir Management and Flow Routing Model: Upper Narew Case Study, PUBLS. INST. GEOPHYS. POL. ACAD. SC., E-9 (405), 41-56.
• Osuch, M., R.J. Romanowicz and J.J. Napiorkowski, 2008, Solute Transport Processes in Wetlands Application of Data Based Mechanistic and Transient Storage Models, PUBLS. INST. GEOPHYS. POL. ACAD. SC., E-9 (405), 89-106.
• Romanowicz, R.J., P. C. Young, K. J. Beven and F. Pappenberger, 2008, A data based mechanistic approach to nonlinear flood routing and adaptive flood level forecasting, Advances in Water Res., 31, 1048-1056.
• Gunawardena, Y., S. Ilic, H. Pinkerton and R. Romanowicz, 2008, Nonlinear transfer function modelling of beach morphology at Duck, North Carolina, Coast. Eng., doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2008.06.004
• Romanowicz, R.J., 2007, Data Based Mechanistic model for low flows: implications for the effects of climate change, Journal of Hydrology, 336, 74-83.
• Pappenberger, F., Beven, K., Frodsham, K., Romanowicz, R.J. and Matgen, P., 2007. Grasping the unavoidable subjectivity in calibration of flood inundation models: A vulnerability weighted approach. Journal of Hydrology, 333(2-4): 275-287.
• Ratto, M., P.C. Young, R.J. Romanowicz, F. Pappenberger, A. Saltelli, and A. Pagano, 2007, Uncertainty, sensitivity analysis and the role of data based mechanistic modelling in hydrology, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 11, 1249-1266.
• Kiczko, A, Osuch, M. and R.J. Romanowicz, 2006, Estimation of probability of flooding inWarsaw, PUBLS. INST. GEOPHYS. POL. ACAD. SC., E-6(390).
• Romanowicz, R. J., P. C. Young, and K. J. Beven, 2006, Data assimilation and adaptive forecasting of water levels in the river Severn catchment, United Kingdom, Water Resour. Res., 42, W06407, doi:10.1029/2005WR004373.
• Romanowicz R.J, K.J. Beven, and P.C. Young, 2006, Uncertainty propagation in a sequential model for flood forecasting, in: Predictions in Ungauged Basins: Promise and Progress (Proceedings of symposium S7 held during the 7th IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, April 2005), IAHS Publ. 303, 177-184.
• Vigiak O., G. Sterk, R. J. Romanowicz and K. J. Beven, 2006, A semi-empirical model to assess uncertainty of spatial patterns of erosion, Catena, 66, 198-210.
• Vigiak O., R.J. Romanowicz, E. E. van Loon, G. Sterk and K. J. Beven, 2006, A disaggregating approach to describe overland flow occurrence within a catchment, J. Hydrology, 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.08.012, 323, 22-40.
• Romanowicz R.J., Young P.C., Diggle P. and P. Brown, 2006, Normalisation of environmental air quality data using spatio-temporal analysis, Environmental Modelling and Software Journal, 21, 759-769.
• Romanowicz R.J. and K. Beven, 2006, Comments on Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation, Reliability Engineering and System Safety, DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2005.11.030.
• Romanowicz R.J. and R. Macdonald, 2005, Modelling Uncertainty and Variability in Environmental Systems, Acta Geophysica Polonica, 53, 401-417.
• Romanowicz R.J., K. J. Beven and P. C. Young, 2004, Data assimilation in the identification of flood inundation models: derivation of on-line multi-step ahead predictions of flows, In: B. Webb, N. Arnell, C. Onf, N. MacIntyre, R. Gurney and C. Kirby (eds) BHS International Conference: Hydrology, Science and Practice for the 21st century, London, July 2004, 1, 348-353.
• Romanowicz, R.J., Young, P. C., 2003, Data Assimilation and Uncertainty Analysis of Environmental Assessment Problems - an Application of Transfer Function and Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation Techniques, Reliability Engineering and System Safety 79, 161-174.
• Romanowicz R.J. and K. J. Beven, 2003, Estimation of flood inundation probabilities as conditioned on event inundation maps, Water Resources Research, VOL. 39, NO. 3, 10.1029/2001WR001056.
• Romanowicz R.J. and W. Petersen, 2003, Modelling algae concentrations in Elbe in the years 1985-2001 using observations of daily oxygen concentrations, temperature and pH, Acta Hydrochimica et Hydrobiologica, 31, 319-333.
• Romanowicz R.J., H. Higson and I. Teasdale, 2000, Bayesian Uncertainty Estimation Methodology applied to air pollution modelling, Environmetrics, 11, 351-371.
• Romanowicz R.J. and K. J. Beven, 1998, Dynamic real time predictions of flood inundation probabilities, IAHS Hydrological Sciences Journal, 43, 181-196.
• Romanowicz, R.J., 1997, A MATLAB implementation of TOPMODEL, Hydrological Processes, 11, 1115-1129.
• Romanowicz R.J., K. J. Beven and J. Tawn, 1996, Bayesian calibration of flood inundation models, in M G Anderson and D E Walling (Eds) Floodplain Processes, Wiley, Chester, 333-360.
• Romanowicz R.J., K. J. Beven and J. A. Tawn, 1994, Evaluation of predictive uncertainty in nonlinear hydrological models using a Bayesian Approach, in "Statistics for the Environment (2), Water Related Issues", ed. V. Barnett and F. Turkman, Wiley, Chichester, pp. 297-318.
• Romanowicz, R.,J., J.C.I. Dooge, Z. W.Kundzewicz, 1988, Moments and cumulants of linearized St. Venant equation, Adv. Water Resources, 11, 92-100.
• Romanowicz, R. J., 1984, The control of water distribution system without regular information concerning inflows, Acta Geophysica Polonica, vol. XXXII, No 4, 447-458;