ProfessorMatthew Wilson

Matt's research examines how water moves over and through the land surface in a changing climate, and how human activity shapes, and is shaped by, those processes. Current interests include:

• Floods and climate change: flood hazard and risk under changing rainfall extremes, uncertainty in flood prediction, and the effects of nature-based solutions such as wetland restoration.
• Soil moisture and agricultural water: field-scale soil moisture for irrigation and water management, from ground, airborne (Rongowai) and satellite observations.
• Land-to-sea pathways: transport of water, sediment and pollutants from catchments to rivers, harbours and coasts.
• Human–landscape interactions: how levees, dams, urban growth and earthquakes reshape rivers and flood hazard.
• Methods: process-based hydrological and hydraulic modelling, Earth observation (GNSS-reflectometry, SAR), machine learning, and open environmental digital twins (EDDIE).
• Research with Māori partners and communities: co-developed research on restoration and flood resilience, and virtual reality for communicating risk.