Jim Hall FREng is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks in the University of Oxford and Director of Research in the School of Geography and the Environment. Before joining the University of Oxford in 2011 to become Director of the University's Environmental Change Institute, Prof Hall held academic positions in the Newcastle University and the University of Bristol.

Prof Hall is internationally recognised for his research on risk analysis and decision making under uncertainty for water resource systems, flood and coastal risk management, infrastructure systems and adaptation to climate change. Professor Hall is a member of the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology and is Expert Advisor to the National Infrastructure Commission. He is Chair of the Science Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). He was a member of the UK independent Committee on Climate Change Adaptation from 2009 to 2019. Prof Hall is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Member of the UK’s National Engineering Policy Centre Net Zero Working Group, which exists to unify the voice of the UK engineering profession on decarbonisation policy issues, and to give policymakers a route to advice from across the whole profession.

Title: The Resilience of Global Infrastructure Systems

Abstract: Infrastructure systems, including energy, transport, water and telecommunications, provide essential services to enable the functioning of the global economy. However, these systems are vulnerable to the impacts of climate extremes, geohazards like earthquakes and tsunamis, and accidental or deliberate human disruption. These risks to infrastructure systems need to be quantified if we are to plan, design and manage more resilient systems. This presentation will explore rapidly growing capabilities for analysing infrastructure networks at very large scales. Earth observation, data from social media platforms and machine learning is enabling us to geolocate assets and quantify their usage, anywhere on Earth. One recent study analysed over 50 million km of OpenStreetMap data to provide the first assessment of the risk of natural hazards to global transport networks, whilst another used billions of satellite Automatic Ship Identification data to analyse the risk of extreme storms hitting ports and disrupting global supply chains. The outputs from the analysis are being used for infrastructure adaptation planning, financial risk reporting and disaster risk reduction.