Maria Vinogradova Vinogradova

Understanding vulnerability and the epidemiology of flood fatalities in the UK 

Member of the Hazard and Risk research group

Maria Vinogradova received a BA Geography at Queens’ College, Cambridge University, where her third year thesis explored the effect support networks had on the vulnerability of elderly people to the 2007 Tewkesbury flood. During her MSc in Environmental Technology at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, Maria reviewed the Environment Agency’s Operator Risk Appraisal (Opra) method as a tool for risk based regulation. The project was sponsored by Defra and the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) and involved shadowing Environment Agency staff on site and semi-structured interview of operators. 

Having graduated, Maria spent over four years working in the waste management and resource efficiency sector as a consultant for Ricardo-AEA Ltd (AEA Technology). Her work focused on analysing the UK waste market – generated waste and recyclables and where they are processed. She contributed to a number of major projects for the European Commission, Environment Agency, Defra, the Waste and resource Action Programme (WRAP), local authorities and the private sector. In 2013, Maria authored the industry report “Commercial and Industrial Waste in the UK and Republic of Ireland” on behalf of the CIWM.  

Her research interests include: flood risk and vulnerability, risk regulation, risk communication, resource efficiency, circular economy.

Maria is documenting incidents of fatalities from flood events to understand who is killed in floods, where, why and how. The research seeks to map flood casualties, their circumstances and types of flood event in which they occurred using a range of newspaper records and datasets, including ONS death registrations and the National Water Safety Forum’s WAter Incident Database (WAID). The work aims to develop an improved understanding of vulnerability which will help emergency services and government organisations to target activities where vulnerability is greatest.

This PhD is part of the UK wide SINATRA research consortium, funded by NERC under its Flooding from Intense Rainfall programme and involving partners from Reading, Bristol, Newcastle, Hull, and Exeter Universities, as well as private sector partners Halcrow and JBA and a host of public sector research organizations including the Flood Forecasting Centre, Met Office, Environment Agency, Health & Safety Laboratory, and Public Health England.