I am a Research Fellow at Bangor University in physical oceanography, with applications to blue economy industries and coastal flood risk. My research uses computer models to numerically simulate marine processes, including how these processes interact and how they may change in the future. For example, how to downscale climate model information to impact, future changes to hazard in estuaries, or ocean-atmosphere exchange processes (e.g. wave-tide interaction). 

Topics: Ocean science; modelling; waves; tides; renewables; flooding; environmental sciences.

Current Research projects:

  • NERC UK Climate Resilience: Sensitivity of Estuaries to Climate Hazards (SEARCH). 
  • NERC. The UK contribution to validating SWOT in the Bristol Channel and River Severn. 
  • EPSRC. Research Fellowship in Marine Renewable Energy: METRIC
  • EPSRC. Supergen ORE flexfund: V-SCORES  
  • NERC SEAMAP (plastic mapping from source to sink in Philippines) 
  • ERDF SEEC project: http://seec.bangor.ac.uk/
  • EPSRC Supergen cross-hub flexfund: Marine renewable powered hydrogen for Net Zero Futures (with Strathclyde & Cardiff) 
  • NERC Digital Environment

I have an interest in combining computer models of biological and physical processes to better understand the marine system. I am actively working in a number of research areas: future flood risk, estuaries, bio-geo-chemical modelling including bio-engineering of marine renewables and offshore aquaculture, wave-tide interaction modelling, baroclinlic modelling and larval transport modelling. 

I am a member of the EPSRC Associate Peer Review College. I am also part of the Digital Environment Expert Network https://digitalenvironment.org/home/digital-environment-expert-network/#MattLewis and the UKRI ECR network & Researcher Forum.

I have worked with many research partners and hold visiting researcher status through a number of collaborative projects: e.g. UK Met Office, Deltares – Delft, CSIRO Australia, NIWA New Zealand. I am a STEM ambassador and have collaborated with historians (oral history/traditions to inform environmental science), local artists and wild swimming enthusiasts (predicting the movement of water); outreach examples include the CwmniDaTv and BBC 2 "Harnessing the Tide" and school STEM activity https://youtu.be/UaxXupfZSSk

Associate Editor for Frontiers in Marine Science, and Guest editor in VSI for Elsevier's Renewable Energy. Reviewer for Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) and IPCC. Session convenor at the EGU conference for 4 years, Chair of PRIMaRE2021 conference.

Email: m.j.lewis@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: 01248 388114

Office: School of Ocean Sciences. Room 324. Nautilus Suite, Westbury Mount. Menai Bridge

Further information here:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=JumKKY8AAAAJ

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matt_Lewis2

I supervise undergraduate and masters level research projects. Please contact me to discuss - particular interest in transdisciplinary research, e.g. http://plocc.bangor.ac.uk/

I teach the ocean modelling module at Bangor Unviersity (OSX3016/OSX4012) and am a visiting lecturer at the University of Reading and guest lecturer at University of Rhode Island USA. Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), with both stages of the PGCertHE completed. I am happy to be an external PhD examiner, and have been on the subject of wave-tide interaction at The University of Strathclyde and The University of Highlands and Islands (UHI), and the Indonesian tidal energy resource at Edinburgh University.

PhD students:

Mike Ridgil - KESS funded. Renewable energy resource assessment using remote sensing.

Nia Jones - NERC Envision funded DTP. Dispersal of microplastics in the marine environment

Mirko Barada - Cemlyn Jones trust funded. Coastal flooding: using historical records to mitigate future risk

Thomas Clough - KESS-EAST funded. Future of estuaries PhD studentship with Welsh Water 

Aaron Furnish: NERC Envision funded DTP (and Met Office CASE): Pathways to Realistic Impact Modelling in Estuarine Areas (PRIMEA)

Sophie Crouch INSITE funded "Changes in the distribution and abundance of marine top-predators in the North Sea associated with present and future wind farm developments"

MRES:

Mike Kennington: Ocean surface currents and novel micro marine renewable energy resources

Eleanor Falch: Spatio-temporal seabird interactions with tidal flow features

Rhys Gadd - IBM modeling of animal behaviour around ORE structures with HR Wallingford

**OPEN POSITIONS**

Particle Track Modelling (PTM) - developing a tool with CGG for the prediction of animal, plastic and pollution dispersal. One year, fully funded MRes through KESS2 - https://kess2.ac.uk/category/scholarship-vacancies/ (~£11819 p.a.)

I am willing to take students. Please contact me (m.j.lewis@bangor.ac.uk) for further details.

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

  • PublishedChanging Hydrology: A UK Perspective
    Robins, P. & Lewis, M., 2019, Coasts and estuaries: The future. Wolanski, E., Day, J., Elliott, M. & Ramachandran, R. (eds.). Burlington: Elsevier, p. 611-617 6 p.
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
  • PublishedPower variability of tidal-stream energy and implications for electricity supply
    Lewis, M., McNaughton, J., Márquez-Dominguez, C., Todeschini, G., Togneri, M., Masters, I., Allmark, M., Stallard, T., Neill, S., Goward Brown, A. & Robins, P., 15 Sept 2019, In: Energy. 183, p. 1061-1074
    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
  • PublishedScience to Policy: The role of marine renewable energy in a low carbon future
    Wiik, E., Neill, S., Lewis, M., Robins, P., O'Doherty, T., Toberman, H., Pan, S., Ebdon, T., Masters, I. & Togneri, M., Mar 2019, Ser Cymru National Research Network for Low Carbon, Energy and Environment. (Science to Policy)
    Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report
  • PublishedWave-tide interaction modulates nearshore wave height
    Lewis, M. J., Palmer, T., Hashemi, R., Robins, P., Saulter, A., Brown, J., Lewis, H. & Neill, S., Mar 2019, In: Ocean Dynamics. 69, 3, p. 367-384
    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2011

2009

2022

  • BU-IIA Funded Project: Mapping Social Inequality in Flooding

    Future flood risk is unlikely to be equal across society because flood-vulnerability (hence economic loss) is linked to socio-economic factors. To protect against flooding, insurance is used alongside state-led protection measures (e.g. sea walls, culverts, etc). Planning laws are also used to reduce exposure by restricting development in high flood risk areas (zone C available here); however, the need for housing (e.g. government pledges for 300,000 new homes per year) may constrain where sustainable developments can occur (e.g. when including community needs/services, as well as access to mortgages and insurance).

    We hypothesize exposure to the changing flood risk will not be equal across society, given changing patterns of flood risk, demographics and flood protection (e.g. access to mortgages and insurance).

    We will show how flood risk will impact social demographics and recreation demographics, demonstrating the hidden value of big data within digital environmental themes. We will establish a method to harvest publicly available data, mapping land use (e.g. recreation) and value (house prices, tourism) to monitor value, and values, communities have with the environment. We aim to establish methods to harvest online-data to map spatio-temporal changes in how we use, and value, land as climate change impacts such spaces - using outputs from our NERC future climate change driven flooding project "SEARCH" and engagement with stakeholders (e.g. reinsurance and Environment Agency).

    Funding awarded through the Bangor University Innovation and Impact Award (Research Wales Innovation Funding). Value = £9798

    1 Apr 2022 – 31 Mar 2023

    Activity: Other (Contributor)

Principle Investigator (PI):

2018-2021. KESS2 PhD studentship ~£54k. Remote Sensing of renewable energy resource. Lewis (PI), Neill and Robins (Co-I)

2019-2020. KESS2 MRes studentship £17,974. Ocean surface currents and novel micro-hydrokinetic resource applications. Lewis (PI), Neill and Robins (Co-I)

 2018-2021. EPSRC Postdoctoral fellowship £364,293. Improving Methods of Characterising Resource, Interactions and Conditions for Marine Renewable Energy (METRIC). Lewis (PI)

2016 NRN-LCEE RDF  “Future of Estuaries” (£4500)

2016 Met Office Bursary for collaborative research with UKCP18 and flood risk (£1450)

2015 NERC student Research Experience Placement (REP) (£1200)

Co-Investigator (Co-I):

NERC Digital Environment Network (£10,000 to Bangor) 

EPSRC (Supergen ORE) Marine renewable powered hydrogen (£19329.46 @ 80% FEC)

Bangor-GCRF Award internal fund. A relocatable method to resolve and mitigate marine plastic waste Indonesia. Robins, Hiddink, Neill, Skov, Lewis, Spear. (£39,500)

EPSRC PRIMaRE ECR network and travel grants to Bangor ECRs (£6102)

 NERC-ENVISION DTP PhD. Pathways to Realistic Impact Modelling in Estuarine Areas (PRIMEA). Oct 2020 – Oct. 2023.

 NERC UK Climate Resilience Programme. Sensitivity of Estuaries to Climate Hazards (SEARCH). NE/V004239/1. £195,737. Aug 2020 – Oct. 2022.

 EPSRC (Supergen ORE) Flexible Funding. V-SCORES (Validating Surface Currents at Offshore Renewable Energy Sites). Williamson B (UHI), et al. £15,696 (to Bangor) Oct. 2020 - Spt. 2021.

 NERC. SWOT-UK (NE/V009109/1:NE/V009168/1): The UK contribution to validating SWOT in the Bristol Channel and River Severn, with application to coastal and river management. Gommenginger C (NOC) and Bates P (Bristol), et al. £283,026@FeC (£47,921 to Bangor) Aug. 20 - Jul. 22.

 2017 NERC “Envirnmental Risk to Infrastructure Program (ERIP). CHEST: Combination Hazard of Extreme rainfall, Storm surge and high Tide. NE/R009007/1 (£110,967)

2016   Welsh Government/ Welsh Crucible consortia “Redesigning Resilience” (£10,000)