Dryland Rivers Research: Active researchers

Page last updated:
11 December, 2006

Who is actively researching dryland rivers ?

Objectives

To encourage and enhance research on dryland rivers by summarising what is currently underway and recently completed. An important aim is to foster collaboration and communication - a cyberspace version of what happens at conferences.

To kick-start the process, I have used my personal knowledge to compile a selection of those active in relevant areas, using information publically available. The list will grow when I get information sent to me (through the Register Interest option of this website). My apologies if you are annoyed at being missed off the list - nothing personal, but please register so I can rectify the omission. Also please tell me if I have misrepresented your dryland-rivers research interests.

The list is organised according to primary research discipline. Where a person is notably active across more than one discipline, they are mentioned under all appropriate sections. I know this approach has its flaws (I am open to other suggestions) and I suspect it will need revision as the list grows.

Each person's entry is followed by a link to their own research website, where such is available. Click the person's name to send them an email directly. Perhaps a listing here might be an incentive to us all to add more to our own web pages?

Another way to see who is active in relevant areas is to look at the material presented at conferences. You will find reports about, and abstracts from, past relevant conferences through the Hot Topics section of this website.

Examining the Quaternary of the Huab River, Namibia

An active researcher examining the Quaternary deposits of the Huab River, Namibia

Geomorphology	Back to top
Athol D. Abrahams State University of New York, Buffalo, USA Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Hydraulics and erosion mechanics of overland flow Changes in runoff and erosion that have occurred in the American Southwest as a result of the widespread conversion of grassland to shrubland during the past 100 years Flume experiments to develop a sediment transport equation for overland flow on rough surfaces
Phil J. Ashworth University of Brighton, UK School of the Environment Geography division <personal website>	Physical scale modelling of fluvial systems Three-dimensional architecture of sand braided rivers: quantitative facies models and testing of scale invariance The influence of sedimentation rate and avulsion history on the architecture of braided alluvium: field quantification and combined physical-numerical modelling Evolution and internal architecture of mega sand braid bars Quantification of reservoir architecture and depositional geometries through physical scale modelling
Vic R. Baker University of Arizona, USA Dept. of Hydrology & Water Resources <personal website>	Palaeoflood hydrological interpretation, especially in western USA, Australia and India, & especially the biggest ones Lacustrine paleohydrology and hydroclimatological change, northwestern India Multispectral and radar remote sensing imagery to study desert hydrogeomorphology in Arizona and Australia Global palaeoflood database Paleohydrological and hydroclimatological implications of channels, valleys, and other ancient water-related landforms on Mars
Mary C. Bourke Planetary Science Institute Tucson, Arizona, USA <personal website>	Paleoflood reconstruction on arid floodplains using geophysical survey data and hydraulic modeling Geomorphic effects of high magnitude floods on dryland rivers, especially in Australia and on Mars Floodplain-channel morphodynamics, and fluvial-aeolian interaction
Louise J. Bull University of Durham, UK Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Large-scale sediment dynamics in semi-arid areas Rates of gully formation, and variation in discharge of ephemeral channels, esp. in the Mediterranean region Prediction of hydrological response units through computer simulation coupled with field studies Co-editor (with Mike Kirkby) of book on Dryland Rivers: Hydrology and Geomorphology of Semi-arid Channels (published by Wiley in 2002, ISBN 0-471-49123-3)
William B. Bull Arizona, USA and New Zealand (Ex-University of Arizona & USGS) <personal website>	Alluvial fans Fluvial response to climate change and uplift Geomorphic response to active faulting Discontinuous ephemeral streams
Gary J. Brierley Macquarie University, Australia School of Earth Sciences <personal website>	Sediment budgets River Styles™ catchment management River response to disturbance
Evan S.J. Dollar University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Centre for Water in the Environment Department of Civil Engineering <no web page available>	Fluvial geomorphology in southern Africa
David Dunkerley Monash University, Australia Dept. of Geography & Env. Science <personal website>	Quaternary landscape processes in the arid zone Effects of vegetation on fluvial systems Arroyos in Australia! click here for photos Long-term monitoring of channel change in arid Australia
William L. Graf University of South Carolina, USA Dept. of Geography <no web page available>	Wrote the classic book Fluvial Processes in Dryland Rivers (1988) Extensive geomorphological studies in the SW USA Advisor on policies for public lands and water use
Adrian M. Harvey University of Liverpool, UK Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Alluvial fan dynamics and evolution (especially in SE Spain, USA/Nevada, California, UAE/Oman) Fluvial system response to Pleistocene-Holocene climatic change Gully systems and badlands: process interactions and landform evolution
David Knighton University of Sheffield, UK Sheffield Centre for International Drylands Research, Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Discontinuities in stream behaviour, especially the influence of tributaries on mainstreams The position of anastomosing/anabranching rivers within the channel pattern continuum Waterholes within the anastomosing channel system of Cooper Creek, Australia The hydrological behaviour of major anastomosing rivers in the Australian arid zone, with a focus on downstream transmission of floodwater
Carmen Krapf RWTH Aachen, Germany Geological Institute <personal website>	Ephemeral rivers and interactions with aeolian dunes, Skeleton Coast, Namibia
Jonathan B. Laronne Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Nahal Yatir experimental watershed, in the Northern Negev River Sediment Monitoring Programme Sediment yield and transport, especially in flash floods
Jerry C. Maroulis University of Southern Queensland, Australia Dept. of Education <personal website>	Quaternary evolution of Cooper Creek, Australia Fluvial-aeolian interactions
Philip Marren University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa School of Geosciences <personal website>	Role of discharge events of varying magnitude and frequency in controlling sediment movement and deposition in dryland rivers
Anne E. Mather University of Plymouth, UK Dept. of Geographical Sciences <personal website>	Plio-Pleistocene evolution of drainages in SE Spain (river capture, tectonics) Controls on alluvial fan development in the Atacama Desert and Coastal Cordillera of Northern Chile Tectonic geomorphology
Leslie McFadden University of New Mexico, USA Earth & Planetary Sciences Dept. <personal website>	Soil-geomorphic, soil-stratigraphic and soil-forming processes in arid and semiarid regions Applications of soil-based research to problems in Quaternary studies and geomorphology, including landscape evolution and paleoclimate Numerical modeling studies of calcic soils Soil-landform-vegetation community-climate relations
Gerald C. Nanson University of Wollongong, Australia Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Application of thermoluminesence dating to assessing rates of change and determining Quaternary climate change Impact of catastrophic flood events in the rivers of northern and central Australia in order to describe the changing character of river form and process under the variable climate regimes of the past 350,000 years Response of river and dune systems on Cooper Creek to the climate changes between glacial and interglacial periods over this period Geomorphological, palaeohydrological and palaeoclimatic history of Cooper Creek, Strzelecki Creek and Coongie Lakes, to enable hydrological and climatic modelling, and increase our understanding of how fluvial, eolian, wetland and playa systems interact (PhD project of Maria Coleman) Identification of past channel and dune systems of Cooper Creek using SPOT imagery, highlighting the clay-filled meandering channels beneath the present-day anastomosed system Potential of multi-wavelength, multi-polarised synthetic aperture RADAR data for delineating paleochannels in the Strzelecki Desert Environments of Lake Eyre and its feeder channels
Theodore M. Oberlander University of California at Berkeley, USA Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Slope and pediment systems in drylands
Antony J. Parsons University of Leicester, UK Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Hillslope geomorphology Overland flow hydraulics and erosion mechanics Detailed studies at the Walnut Gulch and Jornada experimental watersheds (see Useful Stuff section for website links)
Geoff Pickup Consultant (until recently was in CSIRO, Australia Division of Land and Water) <no web page available>	Use of geophysical survey (mainly airborne gamma ray) data to characterise sediments and to identify large scale processes of sediment movement in arid areas Modelling regional-scale erosion & transport processes Catchment scale modelling of extent & hydraulic properties of large floods from digital elevation models. Current work includes use of synthetic aperture radar DEMs on the Finke Gorge in central Australia with Melba Crawford (U of Texas Space Science). Also modelling of floods in Pajarito & LA Canyon, New Mexico using photogrammetric & airborne lidar DEMs (with Cathy Wilson, Los Alamos National Lab). Quaternary evolution and palaeoflood analysis of rivers in central Australia (e.g. Ross and Finke rivers) Erosion cells for geomorphic classification Floodouts in central Australia
Asher P. Schick Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Erosion and sedimentation processes in small catchments Human impact on fluvial processes The application of tracers to the study of desert floods Alluvial fan flooding in urbanizing towns - the Southern 'Arava Floods in Nahal Zin: interactions between the flow and the alluvial channel bed The Nahal Yael Research Watershed, Southern Negev Desert, Israel
Pradeep Srivastava University of Georgia, USA Dept. of Geography <no web page available>	Luminescence-based chronology of Quaternary river and aeolian successions in India Luminescence age-dating service
Harold Stollhofen RWTH Aachen, Germany Geological Institute <personal website>	The low-latitude ephemeral unvegetated Koigab braided fluvial fan, Skeleton Coast, Namibia (PhD project of Carmen Krapf) Successful and failed ephemeral river dune breakthroughs, Skeleton Coast erg, NW Namibia
Martin Stokes University of Plymouth, UK Dept. of Geological Sciences <personal website>	Multi-stage drainage network re-organisations via tectonically induced river captures Alluvial fan response to tectonic and climatic base-level changes Drainage evolution in strike-slip deformation zones Calcrete fossilisation of alluvial fans
David S.G. Thomas University of Sheffield, UK Sheffield Centre for International Drylands Research, Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Co-leader of IGCP-413 which focuses on understanding future dryland changes from investigations of past environmental dynamics Quaternary environmental changes in central southern Africa World atlas of desertification Resource and population issues in arid and semi-arid regions Impact of different national government policies on dryland resource use in southern Africa
John B. Thornes University of London Kings College, UK Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Hillslope hydrology and erosion Investigation of slope and channel instability using advanced numerical CFD simulation techniques Causes and impacts of hydrological and erosional processes in Mediterranean environments Coordinator for the European Union funded project on Mediterranean Desertification & Land Use (MEDALUS) Joint editor of Mediterranean Desertification & Land Use and Atlas of Mediterranean Environments in Europe
Stephen Tooth University of Wales Aberystwyth, UK Institute of Geography & Earth Sciences <personal website>	dryland rivers in Australia and southern Africa anabranching rivers downstream changes and floodouts dryland river pattern transitions wetlands in drylands bedrock-influenced dryland rivers donga (gully) erosion in dryland terraces and fans dryland river response to environmental change Cainozic landscape evolution in drylands
Greg Tucker University of Oxford, UK School of Geography and the Environment <personal website>	Origins and dynamics of gully and arroyo formation, with a focus on Colorado, USA Numerical modelling of gully evolution using CHILD model Implications of short-term dynamics for long-term landscape evolution OSL, geochronology, dendrogeomorphology
Michael R. Waters Texas A&M University, USA Depts of Geography & Anthropology <personal website>	Timing and causation of arroyo cutting and filling in the southwest USA Impact of fluvial processes in the semiarid southwest USA during the late Quaternary on prehistoric farming technology and settlement patterns Lacustrine deposits of Fluvial Lake Cochise in southeastern Arizona, USA
Steve G. Wells Desert Research Institute, Nevada, USA Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, and Institute President <personal website>	Geomorphology and Quaternary geology of drylands in SW USA, Australia and Spain Alluvial fans, sheetfloods and lakes Dryland soils and desert pavements Geomorphic and hydrologic responses to Quaternary climate change Landscape evolution in tectonically active areas and in volcanic terrain
Ellen E. Wohl Colorado State University, USA Dept. of Earth Resources <personal website>	Hydraulics, sediment transport, controls on channel morphology, and anthropogenic impacts on bedrock channels and mountain channels The role of floods in shaping channel morphology Quaternary flood paleohydrology
Peter K. Zawada Council for Geoscience, Pretoria, S. Africa <no web page available>	Flood prediction in southern Africa Palaeoflood hydrology

Sedimentology	Back to top
Ron C. Blakey Northern Arizona University, USA Dept. of Geology <personal website>	Triassic fluvial systems of the Colorado Plateau, USA (Chinle and Moenkopi formations) Fluvial-aeolian interactions (e.g Triassic Wingate Formation)
Charles S. Bristow Birkbeck College, London, UK Dept. of Geology <personal website>	Fluvial-aeolian Miocene to Recent sediments of the United Arab Emirates Ground-penetrating radar studies of aeolian dunes and related fluvial systems (e.g. in Namibia)
Tim M. Demko ExxonMobil Upstream Research, USA Reservoir Characterization Division <no web page available>	Palaeoclimate interpretation from sedimentary records (Chinle and Morrison formations, USA) Sequence stratigraphy of continental successions Reservoir heterogeneity of fluvial successions
Lynne E. Frostick University of Hull, UK Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Sediment dynamics, fine sediment dispersal and pollutant flux Unravelling climatic signals from sedimentary records
Jacqueline E. Huntoon Michegan Technical University, USA Dept. of Geological Sciences <personal website>	Permian-Triassic stratigraphy, paleogeography and tectonics, especially of the Colorado Plateau, USA Sediment transport in sedimentary basins
Martin R. Gibling Dalhousie University, Canada Dept. of Earth Sciences <personal website>	Sequence stratigraphy of continental deposits Anastomosing river sedimentation in the Channel Country of central Australia
Adrian J. Hartley University of Aberdeen, UK Dept. of Geology & Petroleum Geology <personal website>	Controls on the development of alluvial architecture in arid regions (e.g. Quaternary of Chile and Namibia) Application to correlation and production in hydrocarbon reservoirs (e.g. Triassic of N. Sea) Integrated whole-rock trace element geochemistry and heavy mineral chemistry studies as aids to the correlation of continental red-bed successions
Simon C. Lang University of Adelaide, Australia NCPGG <personal website>	Neales River delta, Lake Eyre, Australia- Quaternary evolution and sedimentology Base-level controls on fluvial systems
Greg H. Mack New Mexico State University, USA Dept. of Geological Sciences <personal website>	Quaternary sedimentary history of the Rio Grande rift, USA Spillover fans of the Rio Mimbres, New Mexico Palaeosols as indicators of palaeoclimate
Larry T. Middleton Northern Arizona Unniversity, USA Dept. of Geology <no web page available>	Permian and Mesozoic fluvial systems of the Colorado Plateau, USA
University of Aberdeen, UK Dept. of Geology & Petroleum Geology <personal website>	Quaternary evolution of the Huab River, Namibia Sedimentology of sandy braided rivers Atlas of dryland river systems Ancient dryland river systems (e.g. Triassic N.Sea, Permian of Colorado Plateau, USA) as hydrocarbon reservoirs Creating and running this website
Ian Reid University of Loughborough, UK Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Bedload sedimentation during the passage of flash floods Rift sedimentation: Triassic of North Sea, Pleistocene of the Dead Sea Laboratory flume study of the flow structures which develop over organized gravel-bed microforms Hydraulic interpretation of cross-stream variations in bed-load transport
Martin Stokes University of Plymouth, UK Dept. of Geological Sciences <personal website>	Plio-Pleistocene alluvial system development in the western Mediterranean Maintains alluvial fans website: www.AlluvialFans.net
Harold Stollhofen RWTH Aachen, Germany Geological Institute <personal website>	Permo-Triassic unconformities in the Central European Basin (aka sequence stratigraphy of the Bunter)

Process studies and laboratory experiments	Back to top
Jim L. Best University of Leeds, UK School of Earth Science <personal website>	Fluid-sediment interactions in turbulent boundary layers and bedform dynamics Modern river channel dynamics The sedimentology of large braided rivers Physical scale modelling of alluvial channels and channel pattern: the controls on alluvial reservoir heterogeneities Development and use of ultrasonic velocity profiling in sedimentological fluid dynamics
Ian Reid University of Loughborough, UK Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Bedload sedimentation during the passage of flash floods Laboratory flume study of the flow structures which develop over organized gravel-bed microforms Hydraulic interpretation of cross-stream variations in bed-load transport Rift sedimentation: Triassic of North Sea, Pleistocene of the Dead Sea

Techniques and methods	Back to top
Charles S. Bristow Birkbeck College, London, UK Dept. of Geology <personal website>	Ground-penetrating radar studies of aeolian dunes and related fluvial systems (e.g. in Namibia) Fluvial-aeolian Miocene to Recent sediments of the United Arab Emirates
Steve T. Hasiotis University of Kansas, USA Dept. of Geology <personal website>	Use of trace fossils in palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic interpretation Development of continental sequence stratigraphic concepts and methodology
David M. Price University of Wollongong, Australia School of Geosciences <personal website>	Luminescence age-dating of alluvium and aeolian sediments
Pradeep Srivastava University of Georgia, USA Dept. of Geography <no web page available>	Luminescence age-dating service Luminescence chronology of river and aeolian successions in India

Environment & Engineering	Back to top
David S.G. Thomas University of Sheffield, UK Sheffield Centre for International Drylands Research, Dept. of Geography <personal website>	Co-leader of IGCP-413 which focuses on understanding future dryland changes from investigations of past environmental dynamics Quaternary environmental changes in central southern Africa World atlas of desertification Resource and population issues in arid and semi-arid regions Impact of different national government policies on dryland resource use in southern Africa