The Northern Rivers Institute (NRI) is a centre of research excellence in environmental hydrology which delivers internationally leading catchment science to help underpin sustainable water management.

We are located in the School of Geosciences at the University of Aberdeen and our network of monitoring and experimental field sites spreads over the whole of Scotland. In addition, we also conduct experimental field investigations at sites in Zambia,  Spain, the USA and New Zealand. The focus of the Institute is developing interdisciplinary approaches to catchment science.

We envision catchments as ecosystems which we have to better understand to inform policy making with regards to climate impacts, land use, disturbance and natural resources management.

Our research is aimed at providing answers to the following questions:

• What is the variability in hydrological functioning at the many different space and time scales over which catchments operate?
• How should that scale-dependent variability be assessed?
• What are the potential implications for short- and long-term predictions of catchment behaviour?