Dr Charles Rougé (he/him)

MSc, PhD

School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering

Senior Lecturer in Water Resilience

Close up of Charles Rouge
Profile picture of Close up of Charles Rouge
c.rouge@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 5723
Room C109B, Sir Frederick Mappin Building (Broad Lane Building)

Full contact details

Dr Charles Rougé
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
Room C109B
Sir Frederick Mappin Building (Broad Lane Building)
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

Evermore sophisticated and complex models guide how our water infrastructure adapts to climate change. How can we be sure they are the best possible guides?

Dr Charles Rougé

I completed my formative years at top institutions in France, the United States, Canada and the UK, studying engineering and honing my research skills in diverse water engineering-related projects. These ranged from resilience and vulnerability assessments in the Middle-East and the American West, to an appraisal of smart water metering in London. I moved to Sheffield in 2018 to become a Lecturer, then a Senior Lecturer in 2024.

My research interests revolve around the modelling and analysis of complex water resource systems, to understand how they can be made resilient to change and hazards, and adapt to them. In particular, my research increasingly tackles how water infrastructure design and operations might facilitate, or hinder, the transition to a low carbon economy in a context of climate change.

From my formative years, I keep a taste for working in diverse and interdisciplinary research environments. Certainly the favourite aspect of my job now is to nurture early-career researchers in my team and help them to reach their potential. More about my research on my group website. 

Research interests

The objective of Charles’s research is help both public and private actors in our water systems make wise decisions when adapting to a changing world.

His numerical modelling and analysis of systems allows for longer-term forecasting and a broader vision of where these systems might fail and how we can work to prevent this.

For this, natural systems must be factored alongside essential components of human systems (e.g. infrastructure, institutions, socio-economic aspects, etc.), with several complex models often brought together.

Furthermore, these models have often been calibrated one by one to replicate historical behaviours. How can we make sure they can be used together to assess risks in the context of climate change?

To address this, Charles relies on his expertise crossing disciplinary boundaries, bridging water engineering and hydrology with power systems engineering, economics, decision theory, statistics and large-scale computing. 

He believes that transdisciplinary research and collaboration will be the key to solving the most pressing water challenges our societies face.

Publications

Journal articles

Research group

Catchments and River Engineering

Water Engineering

 

Grants

View all research projects

Professional activities and memberships
  • 2019 Quentin Martin Best Practice Oriented Paper Award from the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management (paper here ).
  • 2015 Editor's Citation for Excellence in Refereeing from Water Resources Research
  • Associate Editor, ICE’s Water Management journal
  • Reviewer for top-tier journal over the last five years, including Scientific Reports, Water Resources Research, Environmental Modelling and Software, Advances in Water Resources and several others.
  • Co-chaired sessions at workshops and international conferences (AGU, EGU, iEMSs).
PhD opportunities

Integrating climate risk to reservoir water quality into water infrastructure planning

This research will advance water infrastructure planning models and techniques by tackling an emerging threat to water supply: harmful algal blooms in strategic water supply reservoirs. They make water treatment difficult or even impossible, and prevent recreational use of the water.

Forecast Assimilation For Resilient Water Resource Planning And Operations

This is an ideal project for a resourceful and driven individual. The successful candidate will develop and perfect first-rate analytical, computational and communication skills that will enable them to choose their subsequent career path, whether in academia or industry.

Socio-hydrology For Engineering Water Adaptation In A Changing World

This project aims at addressing the challenges in translating theoretical insights from socio-hydrology into engineering practice: how can they help us design more resilient and sustainable water systems?

Flood And Drought Assessment In A Human-dominated Water Cycle

This project will use and link together existing models to propose a diagnostic framework for the coupling of a weather generator with a coupled human and natural hydrological model, that integrates both natural processes and water management aspects (water use, storage, transfers, etc.).

Benefits Of Cooperation In Transboundary River Basins

This project will look at developing methods to evaluate the benefits of cooperation for the use of water resources in transboundary river basins, i.e., basins where water is shared between several countries.

If you're interested in one of these projects, or would like to self-propose a project, please contact Charles at the above email. Current PhD opportunities in the department can be viewed here.

Links

Water Engineering Discipline