RIVER BASIN PROCESSES AND MANAGEMENT

We seek to provide international leadership in understanding the environmental processes and feedbacks between water, sediment and solute fluxes in alpine, peatland, semi-arid, and marine environments under environmental change driven by climate or land management. To achieve this we will use and develop innovative observational science, modelling and experimental manipulative approaches in an integrated and interdisciplinary way. We aim to be recognised as one of the world’s leading research groups in the field as part of the water@leeds enterprise.

We have distinctive expertise in water resource management, biogeochemical cycling, hydrological processes, wetlands, terrain analysis and landform dynamics, as well as the impacts of climate change and land management on interactions between terrestrial and aquatic systems.  We have developed an international reputation for research with strong links to industry, and a track record for research council funding. We have hosted visitors from Italy, Spain and the USA and are developing a large postgraduate community. 

Our research interests

We are interested in the structure and composition of the Earth’s surface: its soils, vegetation and water bodies and the processes that actively cycle material through them.

Much of our work is concerned with assessing the impact of climate change, land management and atmospheric deposition on:

  • Nutrient cycling [e.g. biogeochemical cycles (carbon/nitrogen), contaminant release and water quality, diffuse and point-source pollutants, vegetation-wildfire interactions].
  • Hydrology [e.g. wetland processes, alpine stream ecosystems and their biodiversity, arctic and alpine river basin hydroecology, flooding (including mega-floods), snowmelt, snow avalanche processes].
  • Sediment dynamics [e.g. terrain analysis, upland erosion /sediment budgets, erosion in semi-arid environments, sediment transport pathways, slope-channel coupling].

We aim to address these issues at a variety of temporal and spatial scales, without sacrificing fundamental understanding at the hillslope and drainage basin level, and to develop methodologies to further this study.

LATEST NEWS

Adrian McDonald gave an invited talk to the Water Industry Forum where the majority of water companies and tier 1 contractors were represented. The talk sought to provide an evidenced ‘portrait’ of the water industry in the UK in 2050.

Adrian attended the Planet under Pressure conference at the Excel Centre in London Docklands presenting a poster paper on the development of the Environmental Virtual Observatory. A further £100,000 has been provided by BIS to the schools EVOp grant to support additional visualisation.

The Duke of York hosted a dinner at Buckingham Palace for the EU vice president, the universities Minister, David Willetts and the heads of the British, French and European Space Agencies and representative of downstream user interests. Adrian, as a Director of the Water Industry Forum, was invited to represent the water industry.

Adrian was interviewed for a half hour BBC programme, The Report, to discuss the causes of the current drought and the immediate and longer term responses needed. He was also interviewed on much the same agenda for the BBC web news and for a rival media group.