Environmental Modelling Group

The Environmental Modelling Group (EMG) studies the dynamics of atmospheric, hydrological, geomorphological and ecosystem processes at multiple scales. The EMG incorporates the UCL component of the Centre for Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics (a NERC-funded Earth Observation Centre of Excellence) as well as four specialist research units:

• The Climate & Water Research Unit (CWRU)

• The Coastal and Estuarine Research Unit (CERU)

• The Terrestrial Ecology Research Unit (TERU)

• The Wetland Research Unit (WRU)

EMG members are actively engaged with a number of key research fronts, notably Earth system responses to environmental change, climate variability and change, and Earth Observation modelling and applications.

Earth system responses to environmental change are being investigated through mathematical models of meso-scale coast and estuary behaviour and numerical simulations of freshwater and coastal wetlands, lagoons and estuaries (with study sites in the UK, Africa and south-east Asia) and hydro-ecology (including a major study of the Okavango Delta). EMG researchers have recently provided new evidence linking East African alpine glacier recession to rising air temperatures, and new efforts to model biodiversity at a regional-scale across multiple trophic levels is improving the science base for biodiversity conservation.

Climate variability and change research has improved our understanding of the causes and consequences of variability at intra-seasonal to decadal timescales by integrating global and regional climate-model experiments with work on hydrological, ecological and geomorphological processes. EMG researchers recently led a unique field experiment in the Bodele Depression, Chad, (the world’s largest mineral dust aerosol source) that has provided new insights into long-range dust transport.

Our work on the applications of Earth Observation has been instrumental in shaping EO data policy and international research programmes. At a more fundamental level, researchers within the CTCD are developing new ways of utilising optical and microwave EO data to understand terrestrial carbon dynamics.

Click here for a list of Recent Grants.

Academic staff

• Dr Jan Axmacher (Terrestrial ecology; GIS)
• Dr Chris Brierley (Climate modelling)
  

• Dr Helene Burningham (Coastal and estuarine geomorphology; GIS)

• Dr Mat Disney (Remote sensing)

• Professor Jon French (Environmental modelling; coastal, estuarine and fluvial processes)

• Professor P Lewis (Remote sensing; vegetation modelling)

• Dr Richard Taylor (Hydrogeology and water management)

• Dr Julian Thompson (Wetland hydrology and management)

Emeritus staff

• Professor Ray Harris (Earth Observation and data policy)

• Professor Andrew Warren (Aeolian processes; dryland management)

Visiting staff

• Professor Mike Acreman (CEH Wallingford; Wetland hydrology)