Prof. Philip Ward is Head of the Global Water and Climate Risk section of the the Department of Water and Climate Risk. He is Professor of Global Water Risk Dynamics at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM). Since 2023, he is also part-time Senior Expert on Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation at Deltares, and in 2013-2014 he was a visiting scientist at Columbia University in New York. His leadership extends to key advisory roles, including membership in the Organising Committee for the United Nations Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction and the UNDRR Global Risk Assessment Framework Expert Group.
His current research focuses on developing new methods to understand the interactions between physical and social drivers of risk and using this knowledge to improve natural hazard risk management for society. He currently coordinates the EU Horizon 2020 project MYRIAD-EU, an influential initiative in multi-hazard risk science involving a consortium of 20 partners from both research and practice. He also serves as Science Lead for the ESA-funded EO4MultiHazards project and is involved in several other EU, NWO, and World Bank-funded initiatives. He has extensive experience in climate adaptation to floods and droughts, and has been awarded NWO VENI and VIDI grants for his work in this area. His research fuses high-level scientific impact with key societal questions, and searches for solutions to global environmental challenges. In 2019, he was awarded the European Geosciences Union Plinius Medal, for his outstanding contribution to natural hazards research. He has authored more than 160 papers in international peer-reviewed journals.
Prof. Ward has coordinated, and/or taught in, many courses at Masters and Bachelors level on: Water Risks; Integrated Modelling in Hydrology; Tools in Environmental Resource Management; Risk Assessment; Water Policy; and Thesis Writing. He is currently adviser to 14 PhD students.
Expertise
Multi-hazard risk assessment and management; flood and drought risk, global modelling, GIS, climate change impacts; climate variability impacts, climate-water interaction.
