Department of Physical Geography
The Department of Physical Geography comprises about 70 employed and affiliated academic scientists, among which are more than 25 PhD candidates and Postdocs.
Research and teaching expertise
- Coastal processes and morphology, including drivers and dynamics of near-shore marine and coastal sediment transport, and the response of coastlines; Deltaic and floodplain evolution over Quaternary time-scales in response to sea level rise, climate change, and neotectonics;
- Morphodynamic modelling of alluvial rivers and floodplains over modern time-scales in response to human impacts and climate change scenarios;
- Late-Quaternary climate and vegetation change;
- Land degradation processes, including soil erosion, mass movements and flooding;
- Large scale hydrological processes, and the role of hydrology in the climate system;
- The role of water in ecosystem functioning.
Methodological skills
- Measuring and sampling equipment for process studies in coastal, fluvial and denudation environments (e.g., wave frequency, sediment transport, micro-morphology);
- Geostatistical interpolation techniques and stochastic spatio-temporal modelling of geo-processes;
- Applied use of hyper-spectral remote sensing and object-based image analysis for vegetation, soil, and geological applications;
- Techniques for sampling and analyses for palaeo-ecological reconstructions and dating.
Laboratory
The Laboratory for Physical Geography supports our research and teaching activities, and designs innovative sampling and measurement equipment, and offers experimental facilities.