Staff profile

Research

I enjoy multi-disciplinary approaches to global research questions involving science and people.

I specialise in hydrology (both river and climate modelling and monitoring) and quantifying physical processes. I am particularly interested in how land-use change impacts the climate, and how climate change impacts the environment, recognising that people have a central role in managing their environments.

My current research focus lies in tropical hydro-climatology and ecosystem services particularly within the Guiana Shield area of northern South America, where I have previously lived and where I have been involved in several research activities since 2009 involving academics, NGOs, civil society organisations (including indigneous communities) and government. Current strands of research include the large-scale climate impacts of tropical deforestation in the Amazonian Guiana Shield, the identification and rehabilitation of mangrove ecosystems in Suriname, and the functioning of the hydrological systems of the Rupununi Savannah wetlands of Guyana. I also work in the field of international development and sustainability in the field of flood-risk management and mitigation in urban and semi-urban environments. 

I have a multi-disciplinary career background. I became an Assistant Professor in the School of Geography at Durham University in 2015, where I am teaching on a variety of courses at different levels, and where I was the Director for the Masters programmes in Risk (MSc/MA) (2019-2022).

Previously, I was an Associate Lecturer at Northumbria University and before that, I was a Research Associate (from 2002) and then a Senior Research Associate (from 2014) at Newcastle University in the water group in the Department of Civil Engineering and Geosciences. There I worked on a variety of EU-funded projects (including MEDACTION, LESSLOSS, MEDIGRID, EPIC-FORCE, AQUATERRA) and others (SAM, SUSMAQ) on topics such as desertification, shallow landslide modelling and hazard assessment, hydrological modelling, weather radar, climate and land-use change impact assessment, climate change and regional climate modelling. In between these posts, I became the Resident (Chief) Scientist for the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development in Guyana (2010-2012) stationed in a remote field-station in the Guyana rainforest. Here I was responsible for developing, structuring and leading Iwokrama's cross-disciplinary research agenda, including a significant focus on climate change impacts on hydrology, soil carbon/nutrient cycling and ecosystem services. I also became a disaster risk & hydrology/climate specialist for the World Bank in 2013, and was stationed in the Guyana country office, working on a variety of flood-risk management projects. I continue to work with the World Bank on various flood risk management projects in Guyana and Suriname but from the UK.

Research Interests

• Tropical hydro-climatology
• Hydrology
• Climate and climate change
• Ecosystems
• Community best-practice
• Coupled human and natural systems

• 2000: Editor (Review Board) for Environmental Research Letters: 2006-2021

Chapter in book

• Bovolo, C., Blenkinsop, S., Majone, B., Zambrano-Bigiarini, M., Fowler, H., Bellin, A., Burton, A., Barceló, D., Grathwohl, P., & Barth, J. Climate Change, Water Resources and Pollution in the Ebro Basin: Towards an Integrated Approach. In The Ebro River Basin. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2010_86
• Fowler, H., Gutierrez, A., Marani, M., Blenkinsop, S., Burton, A., Stollsteiner, P., Brouyere, S., Goderniaux, P., van Vliet, M., Zanetti, S., Girard, J., Dautrebande, S., Baes, D., Mouvet, C., Baran, N., Baltassat, J., Bovolo, C., Bellin, A., Majone, B., Zambrano-Bigiarini, M., …Banton, O. Chapter 2: HYDRO-Climate and Water cycle at the Basin Scale. In M. Finkel, J. Barth, & P. Grathwohl (Eds.), Advanced Tools and Models to Improve River Basin Management in Europe in the Context of Climate Change. IWA Publishing
• Chiang, G.-T., Dove, M. T., Bovolo, C. I., & Ewen, J. (2011). Implementing a Grid/Cloud eScience Infrastructure for Hydrological Sciences. In X. Yang, L. Wang, & W. Jie (Eds.), GUIDE TO E-SCIENCE: NEXT GENERATION SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY (3-28). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-439-5%5C_1
• Zambrano-Bigiarini, M., Majone, B., Bellin, A., Bovolo, C. I., Blenkinsop, S., & Fowler, H. (2010). Hydrological Impacts of Climate Change on the Ebro River Basin. In The Ebro River Basin (47-75). https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2010_85

Journal Article

• Hughes, D., Birkinshaw, S., Parkin, G., Bovolo, C. I., Ó Dochartaigh, B., MacDonald, A., Franklin, A. L., Cummings, G., & Pereira, R. (2023). An innovative hydrological model for the sparsely-gauged Essequibo River basin, northern Amazonia. International Journal of River Basin Management, https://doi.org/10.1080/15715124.2023.2278678
• Hänggli, A., Levy, S., Armenteras Pascual, D., Bovolo, I., Brandao, J., Rueda, X., & Garrett, R. D. (2023). A systematic comparison of deforestation drivers and policy effectiveness across the Amazon biome. Environmental Research Letters, 18(7), Article 073001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd408
• Bovolo, C., Wagner, T., Parkin, G., Hein-Griggs, D., Pereira, R., & Jones, R. (2018). The Guiana Shield rainforests – overlooked guardians of South American climate. Environmental Research Letters, 13(7), Article 074029. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aacf60
• Bovolo, C., & Donoghue, D. (2017). Has regional forest loss been underestimated?. Environmental Research Letters, 12(11), Article 111003. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9268
• Hölting, M., Bovolo, C., & Ernst, R. (2016). Facing complexity in tropical conservation: how reduced impact logging and climatic extremes affect beta diversity in tropical amphibian assemblages. Biotropica, 48(4), 528-536. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.12309
• Mistry, J., Tschirhart, C., Verwer, C., Glastra, R., Davis, O., Jafferally, D., Haynes, L., Benjamin, R., Albert, G., Xavier, R., Bovolo, I., & Berardi, A. (2014). Our common future? Cross-scalar scenario analysis for social-ecological sustainability of the Guiana Shield, South America. Environmental Science and Policy, 44, 126-148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2014.05.007
• Pereira, R., Bovolo, C. I., Forsythe, N., Pedentchouk, N., Parkin, G., & Wagner, T. (2014). Seasonal patterns of rainfall and river isotopic chemistry in northern Amazonia (Guyana): From the headwater to the regional scale. Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 52, 108-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2014.02.005
• Pereira, R., Bovolo, C. I., Spencer, R. G., Hernes, P. J., Tipping, E., Vieth-Hillebrand, A., Pedentchouk, N., Chappell, N. A., Parkin, G., & Wagner, T. (2014). Mobilization of optically invisible dissolved organic matter in response to rainstorm events in a tropical forest headwater river. Geophysical Research Letters, 41(4), 1202-1208. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013gl058658
• Bovolo, C. I., Pereira, R., Parkin, G., Kilsby, C., & Wagner, T. (2012). Fine-scale regional climate patterns in the Guianas, tropical South America, based on observations and reanalysis data. International Journal of Climatology, 32(11), 1665-1689. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.2387
• Bovolo, C., & Bathurst, J. (2012). Modelling catchment-scale shallow landslide occurrence and sediment yield as a function of rainfall return period. Hydrological Processes, 26(4), 579-596. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.8158
• Majone, B., Bovolo, C., Bellin, A., Blenkinsop, S., & Fowler, H. (2012). Modeling the impacts of future climate change on water resources for the Gallego river basin (Spain). Water Resources Research, 48, Article W01512. https://doi.org/10.1029/2011wr010985
• Chiang, G.-T., White, T. O., Dove, M. T., Bovolo, C. I., & Ewen, J. (2011). Geo-visualization Fortran library. Computers and Geosciences, 37(1, SI), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2010.04.012
• Bathurst, J. C., Bovolo, C. I., & Cisneros, F. (2010). Modelling the effect of forest cover on shallow landslides at the river basin scale. Ecological Engineering, 36(3, SI), 317-327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2009.05.001
• Bovolo, C. I., Abele, S. J., Bathurst, J. C., Caballero, D., Ciglan, M., Eftichidis, G., & Simo, B. (2009). A distributed framework for multi-risk assessment of natural hazards used to model the effects of forest fire on hydrology and sediment yield. Computers and Geosciences, 35(5, SI), 924-945. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2007.10.010
• Bovolo, C. I., Parkin, G., & Sophocleous, M. (2009). Groundwater resources, climate and vulnerability. Environmental Research Letters, 4(3), Article 035001
• Bovolo, C. (2005). The physical and chemical composition of the lower mantle. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 363(1837), 2811-2835. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2005.1675

Report

• Bovolo, C., & Guzman, A. (online). Implementation Completion and Results Report (TF-91692) on a grant from the Global Environment Facility Special Climate Change Fund in the amount of US$ 3.8 Million to the Republic of Guyana for a Conservancy Adpatation Project. [No known commissioning body]
• Bovolo, C. (online). Managing Flood Risk in Guyana : The Conservancy Adaptation Project, 2008-2013. [No known commissioning body]