Suggested PhD topics in Geography
The following list of PhD topics have been suggested by prospective supervisors. They are not attached to funding although proposals based on these topics can be submitted to School and other funding competitions.
If you are interested in any of the topics listed below please contact the named supervisor(s).
Human Geography
- Interpreting the Countryside Right of Way Act of 2000
- Well-travelled Trash: the Internationalisation of the Waste Disposal and Recycling Industry
- Natural gas and the making of a global commodity
- Retail globalisation: the expansion of transnational retailers into East Asia and Eastern Europe.
- The Globalization of service sector activity.
- Global networks in mobile information and communication technolgogies.
- Organising global flows: the changing landscape of logistics.
- Estate agents and the business of housing supply and demand.
- The work of UK cities: economic competitiveness and flexible urban labour markets.
- Housing biographies and the construction of liveable places.
- Putting people back into mapping: ethnographies of contemporary map use.
- Moral Geographies of drug use.
- Negotiated identities: accessing health services amongst migrants.
Physical Geography
- Glacial history of the South Wales Valleys, British Isles
- Quaternary glacial history of the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
- Quaternary glacial history of the Middle Atlas and Rif Mountains, Morocco
- The extent, timing, and palaeoclimatic significance of Pleistocene glaciations in Albania.
- Pleistocene glaciers and climates in NW Spain.
- Spatio-temporal modelling of CO2 exchange in a Sphagnum-dominated peatland: A combined remote sensing and ecohydrological approach.
- Improving estimations of peatland carbon fluxes using a nested multi-scale sub-pixel classification approach.
- Moisture controls on peatland light use efficiency: Implications for remote sensing of peatland carbon balance.
- Modelling moorland wildfire risk in response to climate change.
- Dynamic channel-hillslope connectivity due to drainage density variation
- Comparing ground-based and airborne LiDAR for mapping and managing peatland gullies.
- The role of fluvial sediments in the carbon balance of upland peat systems.
- Fluvial erosion of upland blanket peat catchments: application of environmental magnetism and geochemistry to characterisation of sediment systems
- Controls on suspended sediment transport in peatland streams.
- Carbon sequestration in climatically marginal upland peatlands.
- Carbon sequestration in climatically marginal upland peatlands.
- Climatic reconstruction using pollen analysis of long cores from the Balkan region.
- Holocene palaeoclimatic reconstruction from peat records in the Pacific northwest.
- The impacts of volcanic eruptions: Mt. Mazama and the lakes and bogs of the north west of North America.
- Temperature reconstructions from peat bogs.
- The Mesolithic and early Neolithic in Northwest Europe.
- The Deforestation of Upland Britain.
- Fungal spores as palaeoenvironmental indicators: surface and sub-fossil approaches.
Interpreting the Countryside Right of Way Act of 2000
The Countryside Right of Way Act (CROW) created a new statutory right of access to open country and registered common land in England and Wales. CROW is the most recent example of a long historical struggle to secure recreational access to the countryside. Landmarks in this struggle include the Kinder Scout mass trespass of 1932 – which saw several hundred, predominantly working-class walkers from Manchester claim access to grouse moors in the Peak District; and the National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act of 1949 – which gave local planning authorities the means to provide public access to open country for recreation. CROW continues this expansion of countryside access by allowing access on foot to designated areas of mountain, moor, heath, down and common land.
On the one hand, the access provisions of CROW exemplify the democratising and modernising spirit of the Kinder Scout trespass, as they require landowners to allow other people onto land for the enjoyment of rural amenities. Seen from this perspective, CROW reasserts some of the rights to use and enjoy ‘commons and wastes’ which were suppressed by acts of enclosure in the 18th and 19th centuries. On the other hand, the norms of acceptable use articulated by CROW continue a long history of sanitizing the rural and ‘wild’ spaces of England and Wales by producing ‘environmental subjects’ whose use of the countryside conforms to prevailing notions of rural propriety.
The enactment and implementation of CROW provides an opportunity to examine the interplay of property and propriety in the English and Welsh countryside. A study of CROW would consider the ways in which regulation not only establishes new rules of access, but also creates new environmental identities and norms of rural behaviour. With some prime CROW land in the vicinity of Manchester - the Forest of Bowland, the south Pennines, and the Peak District are not much more than an hour away – there is ample opportunity for local fieldwork.
Well-travelled Trash: the Internationalisation of the Waste Disposal and Recycling Industry
Waste disposal is often represented as a straightforward haulage business, the geographies of which are shaped by population density and the low commercial value of trash. Recent ‘discoveries’ of UK household waste in India and Bangladesh, however, suggest some of the ways in which contemporary geographies of the waste industry may be evolving in response to new commercial opportunities, domestic environmental regulation, and organizational change in the delivery of environmental services. The disposal of municipal waste has historically been considered a ‘local’ problem, and disposal services have been provided via the local state. In the last decade, however, commercial firms have played an expanding role in the delivery of disposal services, an organizational shift which mirrors the privatisation of many other social and environmental services formerly delivered by the state (such as municipal water supply, public housing, and the maintenance of urban environmental amenities).
The introduction of commercial criteria to waste disposal has occurred at the same time as environmental regulatory requirements are being tightened to meet the goals of enhanced resource recovery (e.g. UK landfill tax) and achieve more sustainable forms of development in industrial economies (e.g. the incorporation into local planning of Agenda 21). The combined effect of new commercial and regulatory criteria has been the pursuit of new organizational and geographical strategies in the waste disposal industry. These strategies include the development of national and international waste management companies able to capture economies of scale in service provision, and the stretching of the waste ‘commodity chain’ beyond local landfills and into jurisdictions with lower recycling or landfill costs. The sometimes surprising voyages of municipal waste provide a convenient point of entry for examining the restructuring strategies pursued by the waste industry, and for considering the ways in which environmental regulatory initiatives are productive of new economic geographies.
Natural gas and the making of a global commodity
Frequently acclaimed as a transitional ‘fuel of the future’, natural gas nonetheless demonstrates a stubbornly anachronistic geography of commodity supply. From well-head to burner-tip, the gas commodity chain remains substantially contained within continental bounds. Physical trade in gas between continental markets accounts for a much smaller proportion of world consumption than is true for oil (crude oil exports account for 42% of consumption compared to 17% of gas, of which only one-third is inter-continental trade).
Natural gas, however, is a commodity with geographical ambition. Extraordinary scientific and capital resources are being brought to bear in an effort to re-scale the geographies of natural gas. These include (1) scaling up the length and capacity of pipelines to transfer gas over land (examples include new pipelines from the Canadian Arctic to the United States, from the Russian Far East to China, and from Western Siberia to Europe); (2) tapping so-called ‘stranded’ gas reserves where the costs of transporting gas to market have been prohibitive (e.g. offshore Australia, or the Arctic); and (3) capturing the gas produced as a by-product of oil extraction which, until recently, has been flared (much of the gas once flared in the Niger Delta, for example, is now captured and converted to liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export to Europe and North America).
These efforts to re-work the space economy of natural gas necessarily confront the physicality of gas itself. To produce gas as a commodity, its chemical and physical variability must be managed via standardization, simplifying its natural variability into a fungible form that can be traded on gas markets. Realizing the exchange value of stranded gas reserves also requires reducing the costs of inter-continental transport and to do this, the nature of gas itself must be reconfigured. LNG, therefore, is a story about prolific capitalist ingenuity to work with (and surmount) the chemical and physical qualities of gas in order to reign into the market a substance that was long regarded as having little or no economic value. The extraordinary history of natural gas – environmental concerns such as acid rain and climate change have transformed gas from a hazardous waste to highly valued resource - provides an opportunity to witness in real time the ‘historic’ processes through which the multi-scalar geographies of a ‘global’ commodity are produced.
Retail globalisation: the expansion of transnational retailers into East Asia and Eastern Europe.
Within the generally manufacturing-centric globalization literature, while there is a growing body of work profiling patterns of trade and foreign direct investment in financial and business services, there is far less work on the internationalisation of consumer service activities, and in particular the highly internationalised arenas of distribution and retailing. This neglect is somewhat puzzling, as the leading retail-TNCs are now multi-billion dollar corporations with operations that stretch across the globe. A key trend has been the emergence, since the mid-1990s, of a tranche of major international retail companies, mainly emanating from the US and Western Europe, that are rapidly expanding their international operations, in particular through sustained merger and acquisition activity. While some of this activity has occurred within the 'developed' economies, increasingly leading retail-TNCs are responding to the relative saturation of these markets by expanding their operations in the 'emerging' markets of Southeast Asia, Central Europe and Latin America, markets that until the mid-1990s were relatively untouched by transnational retail activity.
There are a wide number of research questions, and therefore PhD projects, that could stem from this recent wave of internationalisation:
- How can we best conceptualise retail TNCs?
- How do internationalisation strategies vary from firm to firm, and from region to region?
- What are the interconnections between the internationalisation of stores and sourcing patterns, and what are the implications of these links?
- How are transnational retailers leading to supply chain restructuring in different emerging markets?
- How, and to what extent, are regional sourcing patterns emerging?
- What are regulatory consequences and challenges for governments in Eastern Europe and East Asia with respect to transnational retailers?
- In what ways are transnational retailers driving new consumption dynamics (e.g. hypermarkets) in emerging markets?
The Globalization of service sector activity.
While the literature on the topic of economic globalization continues to grow exponentially, the range of sectors used to demonstrate processes of corporate globalization - understood as the increasing functional integration of cross border activity - remains remarkably narrow. Repeatedly, the examples of electronics, automobiles, and clothing/footwear are used to show the complex interdependencies that may characterise contemporary transnational production systems. On the one hand, this is perhaps understandable, for it is in these kinds of manufacturing sectors that cross border functional integration is most pronounced. On the other hand, this approach gives a distorted impression of the character of economic globalization more generally: as evidenced by foreign direct investment data, a growing proportion of transnational economic activity is accounted for by service sectors.
As a result, the globalization of service activities is poorly understood in relation to that of manufacturing sectors. Services differ in two important respects which mean that they do not conform to the typical manufacturing model - namely the sequential adding of value in different locations as products are assembled - that seems to underlie much of the literature on economic globalization. First, they deal primarily in embodied knowledge, and hence overseas growth is relatively more dependent on the mobility of employees. The result is often the establishment of internationally co-ordinated teams and project-based forms of working. Second, production and marketing are more closely tied, despite the impact of forms of IT that are making some services more ‘tradable’, resulting in more extensive patterns of corporate activity. There seems to be an assumption in some literature, however, that this leads to a replicated multi-domestic structure of national subsidiaries, perhaps best characterised as ‘internationalization’ rather than ‘globalization’. In reality the picture is far more complex than this, with service activities being co-ordinated and organised at intermediate regional ‘scales of integration’ between the national and the global. There is still much work to be done on how broad ranges of people- and knowledge-oriented service tasks are being delivered within and across countries and regions.
Therefore, I am interested in supervising PhD's that look at the internationalisation and globalisation of service sector activities. I am particularly looking at work in the following areas:
- Software and computer services
- The film and television industry
- The temporary staffing sector
In all cases, I am particularly interested in research that explores the geographical growth strategies and organisational structures of service sector TNCs, and how they might be theorisied.
Global networks in mobile information and communication technolgogies
Over the last 20 years, the global telecommunications industry has been transformed on an unprecedented scale and is today one of the core industries of the so-called ‘new’ economy. Employment in public telecommunications services worldwide had grown to almost 6 million people by 2000, generating hundreds of thousands of additional jobs in the communication equipment industry and related service sectors, especially retailing. The most significant triggers of such transformation and corporate restructuring have been the liberalisation and privatisation of formerly government-controlled activities, and the arrival of various generations of technological innovations like mobile telephony and data transmission, which have led to a continuing globalisation of business activities within the sector. This holds true for the manufacturing of equipment and infrastructure, as well as for service provision and retailing. Recent trends of technological convergence (e.g. mobile voice and internet, mobile entertainment etc.) are transforming the industry even more.
This leads to a series of possible research areas that might be taken on through Ph.D. projects, e.g.:
- How are processes of standard setting changing the mobile ICT landscape and who is driving these standards?
- In which ways has the sectoral/technological change affected the geographies of production in this industry?
- To what extent is the consumption of ICT products and services based on different cultural values and institutional structures in different markets?
Organising global flows: the changing landscape of logistics
With the rise of new flexible forms of production and global supply chains, the demand for integrated and increasingly complex logistics services has risen sharply. As a consequence, the logistics industry is currently undergoing a process of massive restructuring and globalisation. However, as is the case with many service sectors like retail, the otherwise burgeoning literature on economic globalisation is only beginning to pay due attention to this phenomenon. The logistics industry - and in particular the market for third party logistics providers consolidating a range of functions within other firms' supply chains - is one of the fastest growing industries worldwide, showing growth rates of up to 20%. Consequently, the architecture of value networks is changing. Until recently the logistics and distribution functions have been considered as derived demand, i.e. a residual consequence of other (production) functions. However, the trend towards outsourcing is continuing and more and more globally operating logistics providers take over manufacturing-related tasks like packaging, abelling and inventory control. Some companies even have started to carry out light assembly work for large customers, particularly in the consumer electronics industry.
In the light of these value network transformations, it is worth highlighting some developments that need further economic-geographical analysis. Firstly, the logistics industry's consolidation and integration process lead to the emergence of large, transnational players covering both developed and developing markets. Deutsche Post World Net, the world's largest logistics provider, for instance operates in 100 host countries, employs about 340,000 people - one third of them outside its home country - and generates sales of 45 billion US-Dollars, half of which is realised abroad. Secondly, continuing outsourcing and production network restructuring has important consequences for the system of value generation within (global) systems of production. The power relations between the different actors in the system are likely to change, with potential knock-on effects for the regions incorporated in the networks of material and information flows.
Estate agents and the business of housing supply and demand
There is little doubt that in the last few years government concern has grown over the divergent state of the UK's housing markets. A series of new initiatives, most wrapped up in the Sustainable Communities plan, are testament to this. The creation of nine Market Renewal Pathfinders and the establishment of a National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal are perhaps the clearest examples of the seriousness with which the government is taking public concern over the state of ‘declining’ and ‘overheating’ housing markets. As part of this policy drive, the UK government has acknowledged the need to work with all local ‘stakeholders’. And yet one stakeholder stands out in terms of their unique place in local housing markets: estate agents. However, we actually know very little about this key stakeholder. Some have recently called for greater attention to the role they play in housing markets (Campaign to Protect Rural England 2004; Gilroy 2004). In their document calling for the development of a National Strategy for Housing Market Restructuring (2004), the Chartered Institute for Housing (CIH) and the National Housing Federation (HNF) argue for a greater understanding of stakeholders, such as estate agents, in the contribution and maintenance of sustainable communities. While they don't develop how we might understand the intermediation role of estate agents, nevertheless, this report speaks to how little we know about the institutional role of estate agents in the making and re-making of housing markets (Bridge 2001; Smith 2005). The argument in this PhD will be that estate agents occupy an institutional presence in housing markets, that they do more than do their business: they shape in profound and relatively poorly understood ways how housing markets function on a day to day basis, and over the longer-term.
The work of UK cities: economic competitiveness and flexible urban labour
The UK government has made it clear that labour market flexibility is vital to the continued competitiveness on the national economy (HM Treasury 2003). At the same time, it has spoken and written of the importance of cities to national economic performance, referring in one report to them as, ‘the dynamos of the UK national economy’ (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2004: 9). The local and regional economies of the future are going to have to be – and will be expected to be – important agents in ensuring the continued economic competitiveness of the UK. While there are studies that examine the different aspects of urban labour market flexibility, there is almost nothing known about the industry those very business involves mediating between the supply and demand of workers on a day-to-day and week –to-week basis: the temporary staffing industry. It currently consists of 11855 agencies doing just over £21 billion in business (Global Staffing Industry Report 2002). Its growth, since the early 1970s has been quite stunning (Ward 2003), with the labour markets of cities such as Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle being particularly affected by the expansion of these labour market intermediaries. As older industries and traditionally strong local employers, such as coal, steel and textiles have declined, so agencies have played a prominent part in the re-industrialisation of local and regional economies, and, as such, have become important players in the re-making of these economies competitiveness. Mediating between employers and workers, temporary staffing agencies such as Kelly Services and Manpower, to say nothing of the hundreds of local independents that exist, have over the last three decades systemically changed the employment landscape of UK cities, shaping the skills base of local communities and, arguably, acting as a ‘bridge’ into permanent employment. Employers increasingly turn to agencies to fill short-term vacancies, as a means to ‘screen’ those for longer-term employment and as a way of ‘outsourcing’ the stresses attached to staff recruitment. Agencies offer a widening array of services, not just people placement but also payroll management, and more high-end HR functions. Workers, meanwhile, are increasingly forced through the front doors of agencies, as their command over local employment opportunities increases. The future shape of this triangular relationship would appear to speak to the future of flexible urban labour markets and the economic competitiveness of British cities. There is also a challenge to policy-makers: how best should the needs of the temporary staffing industry be balanced with those of the workers, balancing flexibility and security, and considering what the implications might be for different sections of local and regional societies.
Housing biographies and the construction of liveable places
Recent years have seen an increasingly sophisticated use of indices in the targeting of ‘deprived’ communities for innovative forms of government intervention. Whether in education, regeneration of welfare reform, the 1990s was witness to the mushrooming of new initiatives, partnerships and programmes that used existing and newly created datasets to target monies in a more effective manner, often accompanying new ways of managing these resources. While much of the attention of policy-makers has rightly been on those areas most in need of attention, so-called ‘problem areas’, we actually know very little about why certain areas ‘take-off’, experience renewal. And yet, if we were better able to understand what leads some places to renew, the factors at play, the reasoning why individuals make housing decisions that increase housing demand, then we would have a better understanding of the dynamics of housing markets. Qualitative information will be collected through a programme of semi-structured interviews with in-movers, who will be accessed through local estate agents, and using a range of methods that have begun to be used in similar studies (Bridge 2003). Households who moved into the area in the period in the run-up to the ‘tipping point’ will be contacted with a view to be interviewed in order to explore their housing biographies, and to get an insight in the range of factors behind housing relocation, a complicated, stressful and profoundly important decision in the lives of people that remains poorly understood. Given the limits to small scale data sets and changes in ward definitions, there will be a significant practical problem in any attempt to track circumstances over time, but it is feasible for this to be done using whatever data are available. The outputs from this work could usefully complement more anecdotal and less systematic work on gentrifying areas (Bridge 2003; Butler 2003; Cameron 2003; Dutton 2003), which has yet to produce any formal indices.
Putting people back into mapping: ethnographies of contemporary map use
For most of the twentieth century map making and use were seen as technical activities, with research focusing upon production or cognitive aspects of use. Both of these strands adopted an implicitly modernist and progressive stance, in which context was seen as largely insignificant, and in which the technical advances were read as an unquestioned application of scientific principles. The last two decades of the twentieth century have seen profound technological transitions impacting upon mapping. Digital mapping, advances in data collection technologies and radically different data delivery mechanisms such as the Web, are now well established. A wider diversity of kinds of interaction between the map and user is now possible, the map as representation is no longer fixed, and the contexts in which mapping may be used are more diverse than ever before. There have however been very few studies of map using practices in contemporary British society.
The last fifteen years have also witnessed a series of important challenges to the cartographic project. Historians of cartography in particular have reoriented their research towards the mainstream of more critical social sciences and adopted a much more social emphasis. These critical studies reject empiricist notions of mapping and problematize maps as discursive constructions, focusing upon the work performed by mapping. Critical research has also largely ignored the huge diversity of contemporary mapping and underplayed everyday mapping practices.
This PhD topic is part of an ongoing process that seeks to redress these gaps by investigating different mapping contexts. The work would focus upon a number of case studies of contemporary map genres, emphasising the shifting power relations between user and producer and the links between genre, use and everyday construction of meaning. It would also develop a critical approach to the social context of interactivity, and investigate the significance of shifting technology for the map user.
Moral Geographies of drug use
The consumption of illegal drugs remains a central concern of both politicians and medical practitioners. Yet policy documents draw on stereotyped notions of drug users that fit more closely with the heroin epidemics of inner city Britain in the early 1980s than with contemporary patterns of drug use. Recent social change and the blurring of boundaries between childhood, youth and adulthood have resulted in the emergence of groups of young people who are receptive to drug use. Yet while these 'new' patterns of drug use emerge so 'old' fears about drug 'addicts' resurface and shape responses to drug users. This PhD will explore the new geographies of contemporary drug use. In particular, it will focus on the increasing normalisation of drug use amongst young people and on the moral geographies of social and political responses to contemporary drug use. It will examine the emergence of differing drug cultures within the UK and explore the ways in which an understanding of these geographies could be used to develop a more informed national policy about drug use.
Negotiated identities: accessing health services amongst migrants
Increasingly, migration is conceptualised as both 'turbulent' and fluid. In the same way, recent feminist and post-structuralist studies challenge the notion of fixed social categories and argue instead for a reconceptualisation of notions of identity and its relationship to power, discourse and socio-political action. It is within this context that notions of migrant identity can be most usefully explored. There are particular challenges in examining the construction of identities amongst migrant populations yet it is through such an inquiry that we can explore the social world of migrants and, in turn, their socio-political action and practices. This PhD focuses particularly on the way that certain migrant populations (for example, asylum seekers) negotiate access to services related to health. Drawing on qualitative methodologies (documentary sources, semi-structured interviews and focus groups), this PhD will develop an understanding of how asylum seekers negotiate their health within the British context. It will examine the impact of the migration process on asylum seekers' perceptions of their health, on their ability to access different health care services within and outside the NHS and the provision of services for this migrant population (through the NHS and non-governmental bodies).
Glacial history of the South Wales Valleys, British Isles
This project will investigate the geomorphological evidence for glaciation in South Wales in the Cardiff and Rhondda areas. The timing of glaciation will be tested using 10Be analyses. In particular, the aim of this project is to test whether the South Wales Coalfield ice cap was in phase with the main Welsh ice cap to the north.
Quaternary glacial history of the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
The High Atlas Mountains in Morocco were glaciated on several occasions during the Quaternary and the glacial and periglacial record provides important new insight into cold stage climates in the western Mediterranean region. This area is particularly interesting for glacier-climate research because of the location between the North Atlantic Ocean and the western Mediterranean Sea and also the proximity to the Sahara Desert. This project will examine in detail the glacial and periglacial geomorphological and sedimentological records. The age of the glacial and periglacial sequence will be examined utilising soil profile analyses and a range of radiometric dating techniques. The project will contribute toward understanding pan-Mediterranean glacier-climate dynamics during Pleistocene cold stages and there may be opportunities to work in other areas of the Mediterranean in order to compare with the North African glacial and periglacial records. Fieldwork will be a major part of this project and the candidate must be able to undertake physically-demanding research in high mountain terrain.
Quaternary glacial history of the Middle Atlas and Rif Mountains, Morocco
The Middle Atlas and Rif Mountains in northern Morocco are particularly interesting for glacier-climate research because of the location between the North Atlantic Ocean and the western Mediterranean Sea and also the proximity to the Sahara Desert. This project will examine in detail the glacial and periglacial geomorphological and sedimentological records. The age of the glacial and periglacial sequence will be examined utilising soil profile analyses and a range of radiometric dating techniques. The project will contribute toward understanding pan-Mediterranean glacier-climate dynamics during Pleistocene cold stages and there may be opportunities to work in other areas of the Mediterranean in order to compare with the North African glacial and periglacial records. Fieldwork will be a major part of this project and the candidate must be able to undertake physically-demanding research in high mountain terrain.
The extent, timing, and palaeoclimatic significance of Pleistocene glaciations in Albania
Albania was extensively glaciated during the Pleistocene, yet very little is known regarding the extent, timing, and palaeoclimatic significance of Pleistocene glaciations in this country. This project will examine in detail the glacial geomorphological and sedimentological records. This work will employ traditional field techniques and also GIS and remote sensing in order to increase the efficiency and scope of the project. The age of the glacial sediments and landforms will be examined utilising soil profile analyses and a range of radiometric dating techniques (including U-series and cosmogenic isotope analyses). The project will contribute toward understanding pan-Mediterranean glacier-climate dynamics during Pleistocene cold stages and there may be opportunities to work in other areas of the Mediterranean in order to compare with the Albanian glacial records. Fieldwork will be a major part of this project and the candidate must be able to undertake physically-demanding research in high mountain terrain.
Pleistocene glaciers and climates in NW Spain
The mountains of NW Spain were glaciated on several occasions during the Quaternary (Cowton et al. 2009) and the glacial and periglacial record provides important new insight into cold stage climates in the western Mediterranean region. This area is particularly interesting for glacier-climate research because of the location between the North Atlantic Ocean and the western Mediterranean Sea. This project will examine in detail the glacial and periglacial geomorphological and sedimentological records in selected massifs of NW Spain. The age of the glacial and periglacial sequence will be examined utilising soil profile analyses and a range of radiometric dating techniques (including 10Be analyses in collaboration with David Fink at ANSTO). The project will contribute toward understanding pan-Mediterranean glacier-climate dynamics during Pleistocene cold stages. Fieldwork will be a major part of this project and the candidate must be able to undertake physically-demanding research in high mountain terrain.
Ref: Cowton, T., Hughes, P.D., Gibbard, P.L. (2009) Palaeoglaciation of Parque Natural Lago de Sanabria, Northwest Iberia. Geomorphology 108, 282-291.
Spatio-temporal modelling of CO2 exchange in a Sphagnum-dominated peatland: A combined remote sensing and ecohydrological approach
This project provides an opportunity to study at the interface between remote sensing, ecology and physical geography. The research will involve both laboratory-based and field work components. The objectives will be: (1) to determine the nature of the relationship between Sphagnum productivity and spectral data under varying hydrological conditions; (2) to understand the influence of abiotic factors (i.e. temperature and illumination conditions) on the retrieval of productivity measures from Sphagnum mosses; and (3) to utilise multi-scale remote sensing data, to assess the scale-dependency of these models.
Improving estimations of peatland carbon fluxes using a nested multi-scale sub-pixel classification approach
The aim of this project is to develop and implement a methodology for a nested multi-scale classification of boreal peatlands that can be used to (i) provide information on peatland type and structure across a range of spatial scales and (ii) effectively upscale estimations of carbon flux and plant physiological data from plots to the landscape and ultimately global scale.
Moisture controls on peatland light use efficiency: Implications for remote sensing of peatland carbon balance
Climate induced changes in hydrology will have consequences for peatland carbon fluxes. Optical properties of mosses are indicative of peatland hydrology and productivity. This project will extend this work to other species and test a light use efficiency model under varying environmental conditions to evaluate the potential of remote sensing for spatially explicit peatland carbon flux estimation.
Modelling moorland wildfire risk in response to climate change
Julia McMorrow and Sarah Lindley
Adviser (temporal and economic aspects): Jonathan Aylen (Manchester Institute for Innovation Research, Manchester Business School)
Over 350 wildfires (i.e. those started accidentally or maliciously, or managed fires that get out of control) have been recorded by PDNP Rangers in the Peak District National Park since 1976. They result from a combination of factors relating to exposure to sources of ignition and the vulnerability of the environment. The UK Climate Impact Programme (UKCIP02) predictions for warmer, drier and longer summers will further increase the risk of frequent wildfires on the moorland in many of our national parks. These fires are costly to fight and disrupt air and road transport. They damage the ecosystem and landscape, causing erosion scars and harm water catchments. Fires impact negatively on the carbon budget by releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, especially when underlying peat ignites. Accurate forecasts of the potential timing of fires and the likely locations of highest fire risk can aid the deployment of fire fighting resources, so that fires can be extinguished more quickly and damage minimised.
The topic arises from a case study of moorland wildfires in the Peak District within a project on Climate Change and the visitor Economy (CCVE), funded by DEFRA and the North West Development Agency (CURE, 2005) and follow-up work with the Peak District National Park and The England and Wales Wildfire Forum. Temporal modelling of local weather and fire records was able to predict when fires in the District National Park (PDNP) are most likely to occur. Spatial modelling highlighted the areas of highest risk. With further development, geospatial modelling could be used to optimise the location of new fire ponds and fire watch teams, and to model ‘what-if’ scenarios; for instance, how the pattern of fire risk would change with preventative measures such as access restrictions or with land cover changes resulting from moorland restoration works.
The work can take several possible directions depending on the background of the applicant and any outside funding. It could be focussed on one or more of the following aspects:
- GIS-based spatial modelling of fire risk; to help determine where fires are most likely to occur. A methodology has already been developed using reported fires in the PDNP Fire Rangers Log, but there is much scope for refining the model and the data used (McMorrow et al, 2005). For instance, Fire Service databases of attended fires and current and archive remotely sensed data on active fires could be incorporated. Testing of the model outputs and their sensitivity to data inputs and weighting schemes would also be beneficial.
Alternatively, empirical modelling could be complemented by a social science perspective, which would involve stakeholder participation in the modelling process to create maps of perceived fire risk, perhaps with a view to the development of a participatory decision-support tool. Both approaches would benefit by linking to the temporal analysis; that is, how areas of high risk vary seasonally or over the period of record. - Temporal modelling; when and how frequently fires will occur. Non-linear ‘Probit’ modelling techniques have been successfully used to predict when fire risk is highest (Albertson et al 2009), but, again, there is scope to develop this work by expanding the data base and linking it to the spatial modelling. It would be valuable to test the results against the former MORECS index and the new Fire Severity Index.
- Costed management options; the economic, environmental and social costs of various options for responding to increased fire risk.
The student would work in close collaboration with the PDNP and the heritage lottery-funded body, Moors for the Future and The England and Wales Wildfire Forum. The PDNP have led the way in moorland fire risk management with their Fire Advisory Panel and Fire Operations Group. Building on this experience and the CCVE project, the student would investigate aspects of wildfire risk. It is envisaged that the results will be informed by and transferable to other UK national park situations.
Dynamic channel-hillslope connectivity due to drainage density variation
In many drainage basins, the length of flowing streams expands with each rainfall event and contracts as the basin dries out. Although this phenomenon predominantly takes place in a basin's headwaters, stream-length fluctuations have several hydrological and ecological implications downstream. Our basic understanding of how drainage density varies over the timeframe of individual storms is quite limited despite its potential importance for environmental modelling. What little is known about this phenomenon has resulted from intensive direct observation in the field. Recent advances in monitoring, however, could extend our understanding of drainage density dynamics considerably. This research aims to take advantage of these advances to establish a sensor network for observing changes in the flowing stream length along ephemeral portions of a peatland stream network. Simple terrain attributes will be related to the observed characteristics of stream network expandability, as a simple model of ephemeral stream behaviour.
Comparing ground-based and airborne LiDAR for mapping and managing peatland gullies
Several agencies, such as Moors for the Future and the National Trust, are concerned with managing degradation of peatlands by gully erosion. This proposed study will compare available technologies for mapping gullying in an upland peatland. Ground-based or terrestrial LiDAR is an increasingly important data source for mapping small to meso-scale landforms. These data offer several advantages over airborne LiDAR with respect to the resolution, ease, and cost of mapping. This proposed study will compare the abilities of ground-based and airborne LiDAR for mapping an extensive gully network within a highly eroded peatland in the Peak District, UK. Of particular interest is the ability of these two mapping technologies to measure gully depth accurately, which has implications for management of peat erosion.
The role of fluvial sediments in the carbon balance of upland peat systems
Dr. Martin Evans and Dr. Tim Allott
The extensive upland blanket peats of the upland Britain are an important component of the UK carbon balance. In their pristine state upland peats are a carbon sink storing carbon derived from litter inputs to the mire system. However, most of the upland blanket peat in the U.K. is significantly degraded with perhaps the worst erosion being seen in the Peak District National Park. Oxidation of particulate peat exported from these eroding system means that they become significant carbon sources as previously stored carbon is released. Recent work also suggests that dissolved organic carbon losses from these systems are increasing under warmer climates. Management of upland systems to minimize carbon flux requires a clear understanding of the nature of waterborne carbon losses from the system. There has been a significant amount of work on DOC losses from blanket peat but the impact of particulate losses is less well understood. In particular much previous work has been based on weekly sampling schemes which are inappropriate to the highly episodic nature of the particulate flux. The aim of this project would be to assess the relative importance of DOC and particulate carbon losses from eroding blanket peat catchments.
The student would join a large dynamic research group already working on upland systems and would initially focus on the departments instrumented catchment in the Peak District. There will also be the opportunity to carry out comparative work on re-vegetated peat systems in the northern pennines. Extensive fieldwork would include collection of storm samples using automated water samplers to measure DOC and suspended sediment concentrations. The department has a large pool of equipment for field monitoring of fluvial systems together with well equipped laboratories and good computing facilities, all of which would be available to the student. Training would be provided in field sampling techniques and the necessary laboratory analyses, in addition to generic research training.
Fluvial erosion of upland blanket peat catchments: application of environmental magnetism and geochemistry to characterisation of sediment systems
Blanket peat covers approximately 7% of the land surface of the United Kingdom. These upland peatlands are important habitats and of aesthetic and recreational value. As the headwater areas of many major U.K. rivers they are important in generating runoff, and they also play a major role in regulating terrestrial carbon flux. The upland peats of the U.K. represent 15% of this globally scarce resource, yet they are under threat from accelerated erosion. The Peak District National Park, to the east of Manchester contains some of the most severely eroded of British peatlands. A variety of erosion control measures have been proposed and adopted over the years with limited success. In part this is due to a limited understanding of the geomorphology of the eroding catchments, an in particular our incomplete picture of the functioning of sediment systems in these catchments.
The use of elemental geochemistry as 'tracers' to identify sediment sources is well established in geomorphology, while the magnetic properties of sediments have been successfully used to trace sediment movement in minerogenic catchments. The aim of this PhD project is to investigate the nature of sediment flux through eroding peat catchments using environmental magnetic tracer techniques supported by reference to more conventional geochemical indices.
Preliminary work suggests that three magnetically distinct sediment types can be distinguished in blanket peat catchments in the peak District. These are strongly magnetic, fine grained, periglacial head deposits, which lie below the peat; 'clean' weakly magnetic peats, dating from the pre-industrial era, and 'dirty' peats with a strong magnetic signal derived from atmospheric deposition of industrially derived iron compounds.
This project will aim to relate the relative proportions of these sediment types in suspended sediment samples from catchment outlet streams to the extent of three main erosion types in the area. These are gully erosion (clean peats from gully walls), peat 'flat' erosion (surface erosion of dirty peat), and gully floor erosion (erosion of mineral material from deeply incised gullies).
The prospective student will join a large group of current PhD and Masters students working on related projects. Training in field monitoring of fluvial systems, charactersiation of organic and mineral sediments, rock magnetic methods, and sediment 'fingerprinting' techniques will be provided. The department has a complete mineral magnetics laboratory, a new particle characterisation facility (particle size and shape), and extensive field equipment including access to our instrumented catchments on the Bleaklow Plateau. Basic geochemical analysis will be carried out in house and we also have access to more advanced analytical techniques in the earth sciences department.
Controls on suspended sediment transport in peatland streams
Peatlands cover a large proportion of upland Britain and many of these systems are actively eroding leading to high suspended sediment loads. This has negative consequences for the water supply industry and is also implicated in large rates of carbon loss from these systems. Within storm temporal patterns of sediment concentration from peatland streams typically show positive hysteresis, that is the suspended sediment concentration peaks ahead of the stream discharge. This pattern is commonly explained as resulting from sediment exhaustion due to the removal of all friable weathered peat from eroding surfaces during the storm. The problem with this interpretation is that total removal of friable material from slopes is almost never observed. This suggests either that the sediment exhaustion explanation is wrong or that only a proportion of the friable material is available for transport. This project will investigate in detail sediment production from eroding peatlands using field rainfall simulation. A rainfall simulator will be used to study rainsplash and wash erosion of material from peat surfaces with various degrees of weathering preparation. The timing of sediment delivery from the runoff plots The nature of the eroded sediments will be carefully analysed with respect to particle size, shape and carbon content and compared with in stream sediments. The student will join an active group of researchers working in peatland systems and will make use of the Upland Environments Research group monitored catchment in the Peak District. Training will be provided on field monitoring and experimentation, laboratory techniques and research design. This PhD topic represents a chance to investigate the fundamental controls on peat erosion which is an area of increasing environmental concern both in terms of land management and regional to global off site effects.
Carbon sequestration in climatically marginal upland peatlands
Northern peatlands contain as much carbon as there is present in the atmosphere. Consequently the contemporary carbon dynamics of these sensitive systems are a critical part of the terrestrial carbon cycle with potentially significant feedbacks to global warming. The distinctive upland peatalnds of the southern Pennines are climatically marginal and severely degraded. As such they provide a potential analogue for the impact of climate change on peatland systems. However very little is known about the carbon dynamics of these systems. This project will aim to assess rates of carbon sequestration in these systems and also to asses the impacts of peatland conservation measures on carbon fixation. The work will include laboratory analysis of peat cores and field measurement of CO2 flux. Full training will be provided and the student will work as part of an active research group studying these issues.
Carbon sequestration in climatically marginal upland peatlands
Northern peatlands contain as much carbon as there is present in the atmosphere. Consequently the contemporary carbon dynamics of these sensitive systems are a critical part of the terrestrial carbon cycle with potentially significant feedbacks to global warming. The distinctive upland peatalnds of the southern Pennines are climatically marginal and severely degraded. As such they provide a potential analogue for the impact of climate change on peatland systems. However very little is known about the carbon dynamics of these systems. This project will aim to assess rates of carbon sequestration in these systems and also to asses the impacts of peatland conservation measures on carbon fixation. The work will include laboratory analysis of peat cores and field measurement of CO2 flux. Full training will be provided and the student will work as part of an active research group studying these issues.
Climatic reconstruction using pollen analysis of long cores from the Balkan region.
The North East Mediterranean area is one of the least studied regions of Europe in terms of the Quaternary record, although one of the most interesting. The aim of this project is to provide quantitative reconstructions of climate through the last glacial / interglacial cycle using pollen data. During multiple glacial cycles, the Balkan region is thought to have provided refugia for many plant species that found it impossible to survive elsewhere. Furthermore, evidence from long cores in Greece and Italy suggests that pollen records respond sensitively to climatic changes and correlate with inferred climate changes recorded by the Greenland ice cores and the marine isotope records. Some of the largest glaciers and ice caps in southern Europe covered the mountain ranges of the Balkans during Pleistocene cold stages, possibly in response to markedly reduced air temperatures and sustained high atmospheric moisture supply. This project would represent a major independent contribution toward understanding the nature of glacial climates in the Balkans and would complement ongoing glacial and geoarchaeological research in the School. While we have clear ideas of probable sites, suitable techniques and overall approach, there is scope and expectation for innovation and research leadership by the PhD candidate.
Holocene palaeoclimatic reconstruction from peat records in the Pacific northwest
The aim of this project is to develop recent work by Richard Payne and others on the peatlands of SE Alaska and British Colombia, and test whether the palaeoclimatic record from the region can be correlated with tree-ring and ice-core data from the same region, and from the European peat bog record. Initial sites have been identified with pollen and testate amoebae being likely techniques, but there is room for a pro-active researcher to design and develop the project.
The impacts of volcanic eruptions: Mt. Mazama and the lakes and bogs of the north west of North America
The aim of this project is to reconstruct the environmental impacts of the largest Cascades eruption of the last 10,000 years by studying the palaeoecological changes in lake cores and peat deposits containing this distinctive tephra. A series of sites would be examined from near the source (Crater Lake, Oregon) to the northern margins of airfall tephra in Canada. What were the impacts and how long did they last? Techniques used could include pollen, diatoms or other sensitive proxies as determined by the researcher and the sites, and some methodological development is envisaged. Comparison to more recent events is also possible.
Temperature reconstructions from peat bogs.
The aim of this project is to develop and test new techniques to derive palaeoclimatic data from peat deposits. A range of methods are currently used, but these are mostly water-table, and precipitation driven. There is a real need for temperature records to add to these existing data sources. A range of palaeobotanical, geochemical and biochemical techniques have potential to provide quantitative temperature data, and this project would test, calibrate and implement at least one of these. Study locations are less important in this project, and sites could selected in any ombrotrophic peat environment. See also ‘The Deforestation of Upland Britain’ project below.
The Mesolithic and early Neolithic in Northwest Europe.
Recent research into the transition from hunter-gatherers to early farmers has shown that a period of cultural overlap seems likely, including the use of cultivated cereals in otherwise ‘Mesolithic’ contexts. The aim of this project would be to test this theory further by examing the palaeoenvironmental record around key archaeological find sites in the period 6,200-5,500 radiocarbon years BP. Techniques used would include pollen, fungal spores and charcoal analysis, but other method development is possible. Potential sites in the UK and Scandinavia have been identified, but there is scope for research leadership by the PhD candidate.
The Deforestation of Upland Britain
The deforestation of upland Britain is not fully explained or understood. Open upland areas were originally thought to be in their natural state, with climatic and pedogenic factors preventing tree cover. Now however, the dominant view is one of human impact, with clearances starting in the Mesolithic period. The aim of this project is to critically test the different hypotheses using a multiple-working hypotheses approach- and reconstructing climatic and vegetation changes at one or more key sites where tree remains are exposed.
Fungal spores as palaeoenvironmental indicators: surface and sub-fossil approaches.
Fungal remains are an under-utilised group of fossils in Quaternary environmental reconstruction. The aim of this research area is to develop a better understanding of various aspects of the spore production, transport, preservation and extraction processes; to link spore assemblages with environmental variables, and apply this knowledge to new and existing data sets through Quaternary sediments. Specific research foci could include climatic interpretations of fungal remains, land-use indicators, or their role in peatland restoration studies