Rate My Professor Daniel Kingston

Associate Professor Daniel Kingston serves in the School of Geography at the University of Otago, where his research centers on hydroclimatology, specifically the inter-relationships between the climate system and the hydrological cycle. He earned a BSc (Hons) from the University of Sheffield, an MSc from the University of East Anglia, and a PhD from the University of Birmingham. Kingston's work encompasses two primary themes: the processes connecting present-day climate variations to changes in surface hydrology, including evaporation, snow cover, river flow, and lake levels. This involves statistical analyses of historical hydrological time series and the identification of drivers of hydrological extremes, such as those linked to large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns like the Northern and Southern Annular Modes. His second focus addresses uncertainty in hydrological processes under climate change scenarios, employing offline coupling of catchment-scale hydrological models with climate model outputs to evaluate uncertainties from emissions, climate models, and hydrological models in projections of 21st-century hydrological changes and their implications for water resources.

Kingston contributes to teaching in areas such as Climatology (GEOG 286 and 392), Mountain Hydrology (GEOG 461), Field Research Methods (GEOG 201 and 301), and interdisciplinary environmental issues including Understanding Environmental Issues (ENVI 311) and Interdisciplinary Aspects of Climate Change (ENVI 312). He has supervised postgraduate theses on topics including Clutha catchment hydrology, springtime frost incidence, uncertainty in climate change impacts on Southern Alps river flow, and links between atmospheric circulation and drought in New Zealand. Notable recent publications include 'Forecasting extreme precipitation from atmospheric rivers in New Zealand' (2025, Natural Hazards & Earth System Sciences), 'Patterns and drivers of moisture transport variability over Aotearoa/New Zealand and their impacts' (2025, International Journal of Climatology), 'ROBIN: Reference observatory of basins for international hydrological climate change detection' (2025, Scientific Data), 'The occurrence and causes of flash droughts in New Zealand' (2024, Journal of Hydrology New Zealand), and 'Climatology and trends of atmospheric water vapour transport in New Zealand' (2024, Theoretical & Applied Climatology). Kingston is recognized as a media expert on climate change, weather, floods, droughts, and atmospheric rivers, with his research accumulating nearly 4,000 citations on ResearchGate.