Annual Report 2004: Research

• Research Clusters
• Grants Awarded
• Departmental Seminar Programme

Research Clusters

Regional Economy and Society

Over the past few years, there has been considerable interest in the ‘resurgence of regions’, as the loci of wealth creation, innovation, economic governance, social welfare and policy intervention. In particular, there is increasing focus on regions as the foundations of the so-called ‘new economy’ or ‘new society’. This research cluster brings together a number of staff whose research address different aspects of three basic questions relating to the regional dimensions of the ‘new economy’ and its social and policy impacts:

• What are the geographical foundations of the new economy?
• Why and in what ways is the new economy recasting the geographies of public policy?
• How is the new economy reshaping the landscapes of work and welfare?

Cluster members: Dr P M Gray, Prof R Bennett, Professor R Haining, Dr A James, Professor R Martin, Dr M Warrington.

Historical and Cultural Geography

The main interests of this research cluster lie in culture and in demography. Culture is important to geographers because, in studying diversity and connections, issues of meaning, communication and interpretation are paramount. Demography is important to geographers because population is the material substance of society. The cluster’s focus is on:

• questions of power, knowledge and identity with an emphasis on diversity and connections in relation to the inequalities and spatial reach of imperialism,
• the power relations involved in networks of knowledge,
• the geographical imaginations at the heart of national identities
• the spatial patterning of sickness and mortality
• the ideological settings of health and population policies
• the social, legal and cultural embeddedness of family systems.

Culture and demography, meaning and materiality, complement each other since imperialism and colonialism are both issues about power and form the drivers behind global migrations of peoples, diseases, family systems and ideologies that have shaped societies across the globe.

Cluster members: Dr Richard Smith, Professor Andrew Cliff, Dr Gerry Kearns, Dr Jim Duncan, Dr Phil Howell, Dr Michael Bravo, Dr Tim Bayliss-Smith

Society, Environment and Development

Members of the Society, Environment and Development cluster are engaged in research on a diverse range of topics in both the developed and developing world, but share major interests in institutions, governance and sustainability. Within the Cluster there are three broad, interrelated strands of research:

The Society & Environment group is primarily concerned with environmental ethics, politics and policies in developed countries and in the international arena

The Political Ecology of Development group has interests in the politics, management and human ecology of natural resources in the developing world, especially forests, wildlife, grazing land and water.

The Society & Development group is concerned with social contexts for human development and state-society relations, with research in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.

Cluster members: Dr W Adams, Dr S Owens, Dr S Trudgill, Dr T Bayliss-Smith, Dr B Vira, Dr P Vitebsky, Dr E Watson, Dr D Low-Beer, Dr S Radcliffe

Environmental Processes

The Environmental Processes research cluster focuses on understanding Earth surface or near-surface processes in a diverse range of environmental systems – coastal, ecological, fluvial, volcanic and atmospheric. Common ground is found in crosscutting research projects and in the scientific approaches employed.

Cluster members undertake innovative research, integrating field investigation (often using novel instruments), theoretical modelling, and controlled experiment. Numerical models are tested in experimental circumstances, then applied to field environments. These environments have complex boundary conditions and multiple processes, and considerable experience of research at a field site is needed to gain an understanding of processes and their boundary conditions; such long-term commitment to field sites is a characteristic of the research.

These methods are supported by Earth Observation, using various space-borne, airborne and ground-based sensors (for example, lidar for coastal topography, and UV, visible and infrared spectrometers in measurements of fluxes of volcanic gases and particles in the atmosphere). The cluster is unique in having direct access to the airborne remote sensing capability of the Unit for Landscape Modelling.

The cluster is committed to inter-disciplinary research, amongst its sub-groups, with the Society, Environment and Development cluster, and with groups in other Departments. There are significant contributions to policy and practical application of research in environmental management, with particular emphasis on environmental hazards and risk management (floods, volcanic eruption), and environmental management, conservation and restoration (floodplain woodland, coastal salt marshes).

Cluster members: Professor K Richards, Dr J Brasington, Dr S Trudgill, Dr B Devereux, Dr H Allen, Dr T Spencer, Dr I Möller, Professor H Graf, Dr M Bithell, Dr C Oppenheimer

Glacial and Quaternary

Geological evidence in many forms provides clear records of fluctuations in the earth’s climate, and our research seeks to resolve issues that are central to a wider understanding of a range of past, present and predicted future environments and climate change. Within the cluster, several themes of research reflect our interdisciplinary approach towards key scientific problems, including:

• What are the links between ice-sheet flow and sediment delivery to the marine environment?
• What does the stratigraphic record tell us about the nature and rate of Quaternary climate change?
• How will polar ice-sheets respond to changes in climate and what is their contribution to sea level?
• How will the vegetation of polar environments respond to changes in global climate?

Cluster members: Professor J Dowdeswell, Dr N Arnold, Dr Phil Gibbard, Dr Gareth Rees, Dr Andrew Shepherd, Dr Ian Willis

Grants Awarded

Departmental Seminar Programme