Department of Geography

Aeolian geomorphology, complex systems; physics of saltation, turbulence in boundary layers, vegetation and aeolian sand transport, development of dune landscapes, self-organization models, aeolian streamers, spatio-temporal variability in transport.

020 7848 2421

020 7848 2287

Natural hazards (wildfires, earthquakes, floods, landslides), environmental hazards (heavy-metal contamination), time series analyses, and confronting models with data in the broad environmental sciences.

020 7848 2466

020 7848 2287

Health geography; consumption; critical geographies of public health; lifestyles; political economy of food; urban political ecology.

Critical water resources geography; social networks and environmental management; global approaches to terrorism; South Asia.

020 7848 1667

Politics of climate change; environmental history; philosophy of science; social theory; North America.

020 7848 2622

Historical geography; 19th-century labour protests; public welfare, wealth and the middle class; social exclusion of young people; London.

020 7848 2721

Dr Potts works in the broad research field of urbanisation and migration in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly southern Africa. She also works on land and environmental issues in the region in the context of political ecology. Her research on rural-urban migration in sub-Saharan Africa examines migration rates and motivations, rural-urban linkages, urban-rural movements, migrants' land rights and analytical approaches to urban migrancy and migrants within the Africanist literature. In terms of urbanization she is interested in the nature of urban growth, evaluating the ways in which changing economic patterns in most African countries have had profound effects on contemporary urbanization and rates of net in-migration. An important research interest focuses on how structural adjustment policies in most sub-Saharan African countries have affected the livelihoods of the urban poor, as their real incomes have fallen and informalization of the economy has progressed. These two strands of her research have been followed through since 1985 with an ongoing longitudinal research project on rural-urban migrants in Harare, Zimbabwe. She also has a longstanding interest in the nature and provision of low-income housing in African cities. She has recently published two co-edited volumes on development challenges in East and southern Africa, and on African urban economies and in 2010 will publish a new book on circular migration in sub-Saharan Africa which brings together her work both on general trends there in urbanization and internal migration and her longitudinal work on these issues in Zimbabwe. The linkage between land and migration has drawn her research also towards issues of land tenure and land reform in southern Africa, and the tensions between the approaches and policies towards environmental and agricultural issues designed by policy makers and economists, and the experience and perceptions of poor, rural people. Dr Potts also has a research interest in human fertility in Africa.

020 7848 1572

020 7848 2287

Catchment and hillslope hydrology, with special emphasis on the modelling of near-stream hydrological processes and flooding. Examples of current research include: - ESTEL Model development and application - finite element saturated-unsaturated flow modelling including random walk particle tracking. (in collaboration with University of Bristol) - Hydrological Processes at Sleepers River, Vermont - measuring/modelling riparian water flow pathways (in collaboration with USGS) - Flooding -flood inundation and groundwater flow in the floodplain of the River Severn, Leighton Shropshire. (in collaboration with University of Bristol) - Flood Risk and Communication - communication of uncertainty and the European Flood Alert System (in collaboration with EC Joint Research Centre, Ispra)

020 7848 2604

Risk regulation; regulatory transparency; accountability and public participation; regulatory reform; science and governance.

Environmental and social theory; cultural geography; nature conservation; urban wildlife; postcolonialism; Geographies of Nature.

Gender & livelihoods in the global South; women-targeted microfinance in West Africa & Latin America; feminist critiques of citizenship, economy & social inclusion; transnationalism and financial democracy.

Gentrification; urban public spaces; urban renaissance; geographies of youth; architectural geography.

020 7848 2243

Numerical modelling of global scale transport and chemistry of atmospheric compounds; natural & anthropogenic emissions; transport sector emissions; greenhouse gases and climate impact.

Modelling land surface and ecological impacts of environmental change especially land use change and climate change; desertification and land degradation in arid and semi arid environments; hydrological processes and impacts in Mediterranean and tropical environments with particular emphasis on vegetation hydrology interactions; tropical forest processes and dynamics especially with respect to tropical montane cloud forests; decision and policy support tools for modelling human impacts on the environment in dryland and tropical humid environments; environmentaol monitoring and remote sensing particularly from aerial photography and ground penetrating radar; Colombia, Ecuador, Philippines, Spain, Italy, Greece, North Africa.

020 7848 2280

Human impacts and adaptation to climate change, human vulnerability to natural hazards, international development, sustainable urbanisation, institutions and governance in risk management.

020 7848 2462

Earth observation; remote sensing; global biomass burning; atmospheric pollution; carbon cycle; infrared temperature measurement; environmental modelling; volcanology; geophysical hazards; spectroscopy.

020 7848 2577

020 7848 2287

Aquatic ecology; ecosystem function; river and estuary invertebrates; ecological responses to environmental change.

Alternative food production and consumption, ethical and fair trade systems, contemporary consumption and commodity geographies, rural development, qualitative research methods.

020 7848 2525

Remote sensing; GIS; semi-arid and arid zone geomorphology and geoarchaeology; land degradation and soil erosion; the Sahara Desert, India and Spain.

020 7848 2798

Risk communication and management; renewable energy policy; transboundary environmental issues; telecommunications; biosafety; food and pharmaceuticals.

020 7848 1404

Political ecology; forestry policy; NGOs and environmental politics; urban pollution; Asia.

020 7848 2258

Geography of international boundaries and territorial disputes; use of historical archives in political geography; Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

020 7848 1345

Labour mobility and housing within large organisations; allotments and community gardening; geographies of ageing and masculinity; Japan.

020 7848 2628

Urban governance and community development; the impact and implications of urban policy; the geographies of disability and the built environment.

020 7848 2487

Riparian plant ecology and hydrogeomorphology; landscape ecology; plant physiological variability and its influence on ecological processes.

020 7848 1233

Urban climatology; surface-atmosphere exchanges: heat, carbon and water; micrometerological measurements; land-surface parameterisation schemes.

020 7848 2275

Urban regeneration and gentrification with special reference to London; the geography of education – specifically choice and achievement; the relationship between gentrification and education and/or ethnicity; change in East London; changes in class structure.

020 7848 1693