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.

Cluster Members