RIVER BASIN PROCESSES AND MANAGEMENT: POTENTIAL PHD TOPICS
We have considerable experience in guiding students successfully through a PhD and helping applicants develop proposals and seek funding. Please see the list of potential projects below or submit your own research proposal and complete an application for PhD study. If indicated by "(NERC)", projects can be applied for in conjunction with the School's NERC studentship funding.
Freshwater ecology
- Stream food web responses to alpine glacier retreat (NERC)
- Land use effects on upland stream stream macroinvertebrate traits and functional diversity (NERC)
Biogeochemistry
- Carbon cycling below the streambed
- Towards an integrated model of nitrogen and carbon in streams across different spatial scales
- Carbon sources and cycling in chemosynthetic ecosystems of the Southern Ocean (NERC)
Geomorphology
- Rapid landscape change due to dam break outburst floods
- Climate change impacts on New Zealand glaciers (NERC)
Hydrology
- Impact of long-term restoration on peatland hydrological processes (NERC)
- Quantifying of feedback between atmosphere-vegetation-hydrology in the permafrost zone of Scandinavia and Northern Russia
- Climate change impacts on alpine river dynamics (NERC)
Peatlands
- Peatland development, hydrological setting and restoration management of the Anglesey fens
- Carbon quality, characteristics and decomposition in peatland soils and streams
- Influence of elevated nitrogen deposition on the dynamics of DON and DOC in peatlands
- Computer modelling of peatland development through the Holocene and into the future
- Measuring and modelling methane fluxes to the atmosphere from northern peatlands
- Measuring and modelling the effect of fine-scale heteogeneity on whole-peatland hydrological behaviour
- Response of testate amoebae to peatland grip blocking: implications for biomonitoring of peatland restoration efforts (NERC)
- What causes the formation of pipes within peat? (NERC)
Interdisciplinary
- Carbon, communities and contestation, understanding the ecological and social impacts of upland peat management in the UK (fully funded ESRC/NERC studentship)
