Nigel Arnell is the Director of the Walker Institute at the University of Reading, and Professor of Climate System Science in the Department of Meteorology. He was formerly Professor of Geography and Head of the School of Geography at the University of Southampton. He trained as a geographer and has worked as a hydrologist. Professor Arnell has been researching the impacts of climate change for over 20 years and he helped develop methods used in the UK for assessing climate change impacts on water supply companies. He has close working relationships with companies in a number of business sectors and with UK and other government departments and agencies. Professor Arnell has contributed to all the assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1995.