Rate My Professor Stuart McLelland

Professor Stuart McLelland is Professor of Water Science and Deputy Director of the Energy and Environment Institute in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Hull. He leads MSc programmes within the institute and serves as the contact for the Total Environment Simulator (TES), a state-of-the-art experimental facility designed to model water and sediment movement under various conditions, including floods, waves, and rainfall on scales from river channels to coastal environments. Holding a BSc in Geography and a PhD, his career has focused on advancing physical modelling techniques at the University of Hull.

McLelland's research specializes in experimental investigations of hydrodynamic and sedimentological processes, encompassing flow-sediment interactions, bedform dynamics, turbulence structures, riparian vegetation effects, density currents, and climate change impacts on rivers, estuaries, and coasts. He has produced over 93 publications cited more than 2,200 times. Key works include 'Riparian vegetation life stages control the impact of flood sequencing on braided river morphodynamics' (2021), 'A high-resolution daily global dataset of statistically downscaled CMIP6 models for climate impact analyses' (2023), 'Density stratification controls the bedform phase diagram of saline-gravity currents versus open-channel flows' (2023), 'Global Estimation of River Bankfull Discharge Reveals Distinct Flood Recurrences Across Different Climate Zones' (2024), 'River Channel Change Can Affect Flood Hazard and Risk as Much as Climate' (2024), and 'Small-Scale Riverbank Erosion Experiments in Freezing and Thawing Conditions' (2025). He directs projects like EvoFlood, the Coast-R Network, and partnerships with RSA Insurance for innovative flood protection. McLelland contributes to the Aura Centre for Doctoral Training, supervises PhD students, chairs webinars on coastal resilience, and develops the Green-Blue Living Laboratory to study surface water impacts on communities.