Professor Katrina Charles

Professor of Environmental Health Risks

Sloane Robinson Official Fellow in Environmental Change and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champion, Reuben College, Oxford
Chair of the Oxford Water Network
Academic Director, MSc and MPhil in Water Science, Policy and Management
Member of the Environment Research Doctoral Training Partnership

Academic Profile

Professor Charles' research focuses on environmental health risks, using interdisciplinary approaches to analyse how we construct our understanding of environmental health risks, and how to communicate those risks to affect change. With her research team, which includes expertise in water quality, health and social sciences, and through partnerships with UNICEF and governments, she is leading work on drinking water quality and climate resilience that will help progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal for safe drinking water quality for all (SDG 6.1). Her work has been funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), World Health Organization, UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and includes work in Bangladesh, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Rwanda, and Uganda. Professor Charles undertook her PhD on a risk-based approach to management of decentralised wastewater treatment systems in Sydney's drinking water catchments in Australia. She joined the University of Oxford in 2013 having previously been a lecturer at the University of Surrey.

Current Research

Professor Charles leads research across two international, interdisciplinary research programmes on water security. As co-director of the REACH: Improving water security for the poor programme, she is leading research on water security challenges in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Kenya. On the GCRF Hub for Water security and sustainable development, she is leading research on water security and health. Across these programmes her research addresses two key areas:

Methodological development on how we conceptualise and measure risk. Water safety risks commonly focus on individual hazards, most frequently E. coli, overlooking the multiple risks to health. Professor Charles' team addresses how monitoring data shapes our understanding of health risks through advancing analysis of multiple risks, sampling biases and inherent variability, as well as how climatic events affect risk. In healthcare facilities, this includes research on environmental risks via water related to poor management of water systems and waste disposal, including antimicrobial resistance.

Pathways to integrate water safety into water supply. Where financial resources or capacity is low, water safety is often assumed to be provided by infrastructure design rather than being actively managed. As a result, water quality is often a limiting factor in achieving safely managed drinking water. Professor Charles' team has been working across different contexts on the opportunities and barriers to uptake of water safety into water supply delivery and management. With Fundifix, in Kenya, work has focused on embedding water safety in professional services management, including use of fit-for-purpose laboratories to support rural water safety, and is addressing water safety in schools. In Bangladesh, the SafePani model is demonstrating delivery of climate-resilient, safe water services for rural communities and schools with government and UNICEF.

Selected Research Projects

GCRF Hub for Water security and sustainable development. Funded by UKRI; 2019-2024.
REACH: Improving water security for the poor. Funded by FCDO; 2015-2024.
The Oxford Martin Programme on African Governance. Funded by the Oxford Martin School. 2017 – 2020
Earth Observation enabled decision support for Flood and Drought Resilience in Ethiopia and Kenya. Funded by UK Space Agency; 2016-2019.
Gro for GooD: Groundwater Risk Management for Growth and Development. Funded by DFID/ESRC/NERC; 2015-2019.
3ksan: Catalysing self-sustaining sanitation chains in informal settlements, working in Kisumu (Kenya), Kigali (Rwanda) and Kampala (Uganda). Funded by the SPLASH Sanitation Programme; 2010-2014.
Vision 2030: The resilience of water supply and sanitation in the face of climate change technology projection study. Funded by WHO and DFID; 2008-2009.
Migration of enteric viruses in deep aquifers: intergranular transport processes, sorption and survival. Funded by NERC; 2005-2007.

Teaching and Supervision

Professor Charles is the Academic Director for the MSc and MPhil in Water Science, Policy and Management, and leads the Water and Health module. She co-leads an elective on Health, Environment and Development, with Dr Proochista Ariana in the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health. She contributes to the MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine.

Current Graduate Research Students

Pan Ei Ei Phyoe	Climate Services Transformed: Bridging Climate Science and Practice to Support Water Resources Management under Future Uncertainty
Rob Ferritto	Using a feminist ethic of care to evaluate women's engagement with digital economy in Ethiopia

Recent Graduate Research Students

Nameerah Khan	Bangladesh's arsenic crisis: Navigating the complexities of the science-policy interface of water quality and health
Saskia Nowicki	Health Risk in Complex Adaptive Rural Water Systems
Thanti Octavianti	Achieving water security in a developing-country delta city: Challenges from a waterfront development project in Jakarta Bay
Julian Kirchherr	The Anti-Dam Protest Cycle: Evidence from Asia
Kenan Okurut	Demand-driven sustainable sanitation improvements in low-income informal settlements: a collective approach for East African cities (University of Surrey)