Staff Profile
Mr Jonah Tosney
Contact Mr Jonah Tosney (email at j.j.tosney@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
1995 - 1998: BSc (Hons) Zoology, University of Nottingham
2004 - 2005: MSc Environmental Science, University of Melbourne
2007 - present: PhD Geography, Durham University
Current Research - Redesigning reservoir release flows for downstream habitat improvements.
The vast majority of British rivers are regulated by dams, which have been designed with little consideration for riverine ecology, resulting in a number of ecologically degraded water courses. New European legislation states that all modified water bodies must achieve good ecological potential by 2015. This project is run jointly by Durham University and Yorkshire Water and follows the work of David Mould, a previous Durham student. It is now recognised that seasonal changes in reservoir flow can be beneficial both in terms of water yield and downstream ecology, and this project aims to further investigate the ecological effects of seasonal changes in flow as well as spate releases. I aim to develop models used to re-design flows for ecological benefit by applying to new case studies and species, and use the models to re-design flows from two groups of Yorkshire reservoirs to improve ecology downstream.