Hisham Nuhu
Flood and disaster risk specialist: from catchment hydrology and 1D–2D hydraulic models to national risk assessment, early warning and risk-informed investment.
I came to flooding through engineering: a foundation degree and then a BSc in Flood and Coastal Engineering at Brunel, with placements at the Environment Agency alongside. At Hamstall Ridware, a village on the River Blithe below a water-supply reservoir, I spent several years on one flood problem. The hydrology was entirely my work. I built the 1D–2D hydraulic model jointly with an Environment Agency modelling colleague. I checked it against residents’ records of the February 2020 flood. The outcome was a flood bund, built by the farmers in partnership with landowners and the village.
In the West Midlands I also regulated work on rivers. I assessed flood risk activity permits for works on or near main rivers and flood defences, and set conditions so that they would not add to flood risk. In London I moved to the other side of the system: the money, the partners, planning advice and the incident rota. My Oxford MSc took the same questions to national scale in Ghana.
That is the work I want to do now: helping governments and their development partners bring risk evidence, finance and early warning together, wherever the decisions are made.
Available for short-term and framework assignments, home-based or in-country
Short biography
Hisham Nuhu is a flood and disaster risk specialist with about seven years of professional experience in the United Kingdom and Ghana. At the Environment Agency (2019–2025) he delivered design-flood hydrology, co-built a linked 1D–2D river model, appraised flood options with his own cost–benefit analysis, supported partnership-funded flood schemes with an estimated value of over US$5.2m, and served as a Flood Warning Duty Officer. As an independent consultant (2025–26) he assessed national river flood risk across Ghana’s 260 districts under uncertainty, presented for discussion with the World Bank. He holds an MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford.
A full CV is available on request.
Education
Engineering at Brunel, water policy at Oxford
I studied flood and coastal engineering, alongside placements at the Environment Agency, then took a master’s degree in how water is governed and paid for.
- University of OxfordMSc Water Science, Policy and Management, 2025–26 (graduated)
- Brunel University LondonBSc Flood and Coastal Engineering, 2020–22
- Brunel University LondonFdSc Flood and Coastal Engineering, 2018–20
- Education in full
Why this work matters
Floods are getting bigger, and they do not fall equally
Extreme daily rainfall gets about 7% heavier for every degree of warming. Sea level rose about 20 cm over the last century, and it is now rising nearly three times as fast. On the River Blithe I designed for peak flows 29% higher, the climate allowance for the 2080s. Behind every national damage figure are people, and they are not exposed equally.
- people worldwide live with significant flood risk; nine in ten of them in low- and middle-income countries
- 1.81billion
- children (0–14) among the 1.18 million people in Ghana’s modelled 1-in-100-year river flood extent
- about421,700
- over-representation of people aged 65 and over in the same Ghana extent, compared with their share of the population
- ×1.20
Sources: IPCC AR6 WGI Summary for Policymakers (2021); Rentschler et al. (2022) via the World Bank; Environment Agency peak river flow allowances; Ghana results from H. Nuhu (2026), modelled with WorldPop 2026 and GSS 2021 census shares, baseline flood extent.
Tools and frameworks
The software I use for hydrology, modelling, analysis and appraisal, and the international frameworks my work follows.
Hydrology and hydraulic modelling
- Flood Modeller
- TUFLOW
- WINFAP
- ReFH2
2D hydrodynamic modellingI build full 2D hydrodynamic models at 10–30 m resolution. I used TUFLOW and Flood Modeller 2D at Hamstall; HEC-RAS 2D and SFINCS are other options for river and coastal work.
Geospatial analysis and data
- QGIS
- Python: xarray, rasterio, geopandas, scipy
- R
Forecasting and warning
- IMFS on Delft-FEWS (as a duty officer)
Appraisal
- Multi-Coloured Manual damages (Penning-Rowsell et al., 2013)
- FCERM appraisal guidance
Frameworks I work to
- Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030
- Early Warnings for All
- UNDRR Strategic Framework 2026–2030
- ADB Disaster Risk Management Action Plan 2024–2030
- World Bank Environmental and Social Framework