Dr Heather Smith
Research Fellow in Water Governance
Location: Building 39, Cranfield campus
E: h.m.smith@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 750111 x3336
Environmental Science and Technology
Current activities
Dr Smith’s research interests broadly include the policies and institutions of water management and land use planning. Her current focus is a European (FP7) project known as TRUST. The TRUST project is examining the future of urban water services, with an emphasis on driving innovations in governance, modelling concepts, technologies, and decision support tools, and developing novel approaches to integrated water, energy, and infrastructure asset management.
Clients
EC FP7
Background
Dr Heather Smith holds a BSc in Environmental and Conservation Science from the University of Alberta (Canada). After completing her degree, she worked as a researcher for a Canadian NGO, where she was involved in a multi-stakeholder process for developing and implementing watershed (catchment) planning in Ontario.
She then obtained her MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford, for which she studied how a growing understanding of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) could help remote mountain communities in Nepal reduce their vulnerability to these catastrophic events.
Heather completed her PhD at the University of Aberdeen, where her research focused on the Scottish land use planning system, and on developing recommendations to improve its emerging relationship with river basin management planning, as required under the European Water Framework Directive.
She joined Cranfield University as a Research Fellow in August 2011.
