Professor of Hydrology
Professor at the University of Public Service (Hungary)
President of Water Future Ltd.

Dr. András Szöllösi-Nagy is a hydrologist whose main fields of expertise include
the theory of hydrological systems, hydrological time series analysis,
stochastic–dynamic modeling of channel flow, real-time forecasting,
and process control based on recursive algorithms.

Education and Academic Degrees

He was born in Budapest, where he completed secondary education in 1967 and
obtained a technical qualification at the Kvassay Jenő Bridge and Waterworks
Construction Technical School.

He earned a degree in Civil Engineering with specialization in Hydraulic
Engineering from the Budapest University of Technology (BME).
His diploma thesis focused on the identification of linear stochastic
hydrological systems.

In 1979, he received his university doctoral degree (Dr. Techn.)
summa cum laude in hydrology and mathematical statistics.
In 1990, he defended his Candidate of Sciences dissertation at the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences, which was recognized as equivalent to a PhD by BME.

In 1991, he was awarded the Doctor of Science (DSc) degree by the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences and habilitated (Dr. habil.) at BME in the same year.
From 1992 he served as an honorary professor, and from 1994 as a full professor.

Academic and Teaching Career

From 1994, he served as Full Professor at the Department of Water Management,
Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
Between 2009 and 2015, he was Professor of Stochastic Hydrology at the
UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education and at Delft University of Technology
(TU Delft).

He has held honorary professorships at several universities, including
BME; Óbuda University; University of Miskolc; Széchenyi István University;
University of Arizona (Tucson, USA); University of Pannonia; and
József Attila University (Szeged).

Since 2010, he has been a Visiting Professor at Beijing Normal University.
In 2015, he was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Debrecen.

He has taught as a Visiting Professor at Luleå University (Sweden),
the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok), and regularly lectured in
UNESCO postgraduate courses in Budapest, Belgrade, Moscow, and Delft.
Between 1985 and 1989, he was a regular Visiting Professor at the
University of Waterloo (Canada).

Since July 2016, he has been Professor at the Faculty of Water Sciences,
University of Public Service, focusing on sustainable water management.

Research Activities

After completing his university studies, he joined the System Hydrology
Department of VITUKI. Between 1974 and 1976, he worked as a researcher at the
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria.

In 1976, he collaborated with IBM Italy on the development of a real-time
hydrological forecasting system for the Arno River.

As an expert of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), he provided
consultancy on hydrological forecasting in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Between 1985 and 1989, he served as Deputy Scientific Director General of VITUKI.
The discrete linear cascade model (DLCM) he developed has been adopted by
operational hydrological forecasting services in several countries, including
the Hungarian National Hydrological Forecasting Service.

Work within the United Nations System

In 1989, he was appointed by the Director-General of UNESCO as Director of the
Water Science Division in Paris and Head of the Intergovernmental Hydrological
Programme (IHP), positions he held for twenty years.

During the 2010s, he also served as Assistant Director-General for Natural
Sciences at UNESCO and coordinated several environmental programs.

He initiated the UN World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) and the
World Water Development Report series.
In 2009, he was appointed Rector of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education
in Delft, the Netherlands.

He served as a Member and Chair of UN-Water and was elected President of the
Intergovernmental Council of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme in 2016.

Professional Service and Honors

He has played a leading role in numerous international scientific organizations,
including the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS),
International Association for Hydraulic Research (IAHR),
International Water Resources Association (IWRA), and the
International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).

He is a founding member of the World Water Council and contributed decisively
to the establishment of the World Water Forum series.
Since 2014, he has been based permanently in Hungary and serves on several
committees of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

His honors include the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of
Hungary (2009), the Commander’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit,
the Vásárhelyi Award, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Award,
and the Africa Water Prize, among many others.