Skip to main content

Catchments and Rivers

A key focus of the Catchments and Rivers cluster is on monitoring and modelling the interactions and feedbacks between geomorphology, hydrology, vegetation, and water chemistry in hillslope and river systems. There is a particular emphasis on three critical areas:

  1. building on our numerical and analogue modelling expertise to investigate the interactions of vegetation with water flow and sediment transport, including the effects of vegetation on hillslope stability and dryland erosion, and the role of plants in modulating flow in river channels;
  2. developing an improved process-based understanding of how water, nutrients, and sediment move through catchments, with an emphasis on how the relevant physical processes can be deduced from a wide range of novel observational data at high spatial and temporal resolution; and
  3. moving beyond a rigid distinction between bedrock and alluvial rivers to quantify flow and sediment transport processes in the mixed bedrock-alluvial channels that typify montane environments.

For further details, please contact: Dr Elizabeth Dingle

Photograph of a mountain river by Dr. E. Dingle

Cluster Members

Staff name Research interests
Dave Bridgland Fluvial history, Quaternary, Palaeontology/Archaeology
Isabella Bovolo

Tropical hydro-climatology, Hydrology, Climate and Climate Change 

Patrice Carbonneau 

Digital Photogrammetry, Digital Image Processing, Fluvial Remote Sensing, Fluvial Geomorphology and Ecology

 
Dr Caroline Clason

Glaciers, ice sheets, glacial hydrology, environmental risk, mountain catchments

Fiona Clubb Tectonic and fluvial geomorphology, Topographic analysis, Landscape evolution 
Nick Cox

Statistical applications in Geography (e.g. geomorphology, hydrology, climatology)

 
Alex Densmore Mountain building, Earthquakes, Landsliding, Hazard-risk-resilience 
Lizzie Dingle Fluvial geomorphology, Sediment transport 
Danny Donoghue 

Airborne and satellite remote sensing, Remote sensing for archaeology, forestry and coastal change

 
Rich Hardy 

Open channel hydraulics, Sediment transport, Numerical modelling 

Rebecca Hodge

Fluvial geomorphology, Sediment transport, Numerical modelling

Stewart Jamieson

Glacial geomorphology, Ice stream dynamics, Landscape evolution

Erin McClymont

Past Environmental and Climate Change, Organic Geochemistry

Glenn McGregor

Synoptic climatology, Biometeorology, Hydroclimatology, Climate and society

Sim Reaney

Catchment-based hydrological modelling, Connectivity of environmental flows, Flood hazards, Diffuse pollution

Dr Charlotte Spencer-Jones

Carbon Cycling, Environmental Change, Lipidomics, Mass Spectrometry

Laura Turnbull-Lloyd

Ecohydrology and ecogeomorphology, land degradation, drylands, connectivity

John Wainwright 

Human-Environment Interactions, Hydrology, Geomorphology

Jeff Warburton

Fluvial geomorphology, Mountain sediment systems, Geocryology

 

Group of students and staff standing in a cylindrical artwork

Research Clusters

Our research clusters are focused on ideas. They act as centres of gravity for collective research activity and provide the foundational means through which we generate the diversity, vibrancy and innovation that underpins our research.

Back to Research Clusters

Impacting the World

Our research culture is set up to generate research that is both intellectually innovative and impactful, addressing the key global challenges of our time and providing wider public and societal benefit.

See how our research is making a difference
Geography IGU

Our Research Community

Our academic researchers and research staff are completing a wide range of research that is Impacting the World, including work that is relevant to the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals, and publishing literature that is changing our understanding of the world.

Our Research Community
Virtual connections with a hand

Virtual Library

Much of our research takes final form in high-impact articles or books. But a considerable amount of our activity takes place in other mediums.

Virtual Library

Contact Us

Founded in 1928, the Department of Geography at Durham University is one of the leading centres of geographical research and education in the world.

Department of Geography

Postgraduate Study
Durham University
Lower Mountjoy
South Road, Durham
DH1 3LE, UK
Tel: +44 (0)191 33418000

 

Be social. Be informed. Be a part of Durham Geography.

Stylised instagram logo in blueBluesky logo in blue Stylised X logo in blue