The first Professor of Hydrology in the UK was Terrence O’Donnell who was appointed at Lancaster in 1972. Terrence was well known for his work in hydrological modelling and model calibration, and this theme has been continued by his successor, Keith Beven, who moved to Lancaster in 1985 and was made Professor of Hydrology and fluid Dynamics in 1991. During the period since then the Group has expanded to include Dr Nick Chappell; with interests in tropical hydrology; Prof. Andy Binley, with interests in groundwater and geophysical imaging; and Dr. John Quinton, with interests in sediment transport and nutrients. Long serving post-docs in the group include Dr. Jim Freer, Dr Renata Romanowicz and Dr Florian Pappenberger.

The Group has strong links with the Environmental Systems group that led by Prof. Peter Young, the Centre for Sustainable Water Management in the Lancaster Environment Centre led by Prof. Louise Heathwaite, and with other staff, particularly in the links between hydrology and atmospheric science, aquatic ecology and geochemistry.

A number of Freeware packages are maintained by the Group, including demonstrations of Digital Terrain Analysis and TOPMODEL for hydrological modelling, and the Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) methodology. The Group also makes extensive use of the Matlab CAPTAIN toolbox developed by Peter Young and colleagues.