Angela Gurnell
Alma materUniversity of Exeter
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Southampton
University of Birmingham
King’s College London
Queen Mary University of London

Angela Gurnell is a British geoscientist who is Professor of Physical Geography at Queen Mary University of London. Her research considers hydrology, geomorphology and plant ecology. She is particularly interested in how vegetations and fluvial processes interact, and developing novel methodologies to monitor and assess rivers. She was awarded the Royal Geographical Society Victoria Medal in 2002 and the European Geosciences Union Alfred Wegener medal in 2021.

Early life and education

Gurnell was an undergraduate student at the University of Exeter.[1] She remained in Exeter for her doctoral research, during which she became interested in hydrology. She was particularly interested in hydrological mapping. After graduating she joined the faculty at the University of Southampton.[2]

Research and career

At Southampton, Gurnell was appointed Senior Lecturer and eventually promoted to Reader. She was awarded a personal chair at the University of Birmingham in 1995, where she stayed until she joined King's College London in 2002. She was Head of Department at King's College until 2006.[3] In 2010 Gurnell left King's College to join Queen Mary University of London.[4]

Gurnell became interested in the interaction between vegetation and fluvial processes.[3] She started studying the role of aquatic and riparian plants at landform and river-reach scales.[5] Gurnell believes that these plants are engineers of river ecosystems, impacting the development of landforms (so-called morphodynamics). She was a pioneer in better understanding riparian vegetation.[6] The complex root systems developed by riparian trees can act to reinforce fluvial landforms. In low gradient, lowland rivers aquatic plants determine the bed morphology and channel migration. She has systematically evaluated how the transport and deposition of large wood.

Gurnell was one of the founders of the Urban River Survey,[7] which analyses hundreds of metres of urban rivers, and the modular river survey,[8] which studies rivers at various spatial scales. Both tools allow members of the public and river conservation professionals to collect information about river behaviour, and aim to limit damage to nature.[5]

Awards and honours

Selected publications

  • Corenblit, Dov; Tabacchi, Eric; Steiger, Johannes; Gurnell, Angela M. (2007). "Reciprocal interactions and adjustments between fluvial landforms and vegetation dynamics in river corridors: A review of complementary approaches". Earth-Science Reviews. 84 (1–2): 56–86. Bibcode:2007ESRv...84...56C. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2007.05.004. ISSN 0012-8252.
  • GURNELL, A. M.; PIÉGAY, H.; SWANSON, F. J.; GREGORY, S. V. (2002). "Large wood and fluvial processes". Freshwater Biology. 47 (4): 601–619. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2427.2002.00916.x. ISSN 0046-5070.
  • Gurnell, Angela (16 April 2013). "Plants as river system engineers". Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. 39 (1): 4–25. doi:10.1002/esp.3397. ISSN 0197-9337. S2CID 55420478.

References

  1. ↑ Gurnell, Angela (1 November 2018). "Twenty-five years of progress in physical geography: a personal view of its antecedents and trajectory". Geography. 103 (3): 122–136. doi:10.1080/00167487.2018.12094049. ISSN 0016-7487. S2CID 198422755.
  2. ↑ "Penn State Engineering: Civil and Environmental Engineering Events". www.cee.psu.edu. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Penn State Engineering: Civil and Environmental Engineering Events". www.cee.psu.edu. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  4. ↑ "Angela Gurnell - Research Portal, King's College, London". kclpure.kcl.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Angela Gurnell". www.qmul.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  6. ↑ "Angela M. Gurnell". European Geosciences Union (EGU). Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  7. ↑ "Urban River Survey". urbanriversurvey.org. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  8. ↑ "Modular River Survey". modularriversurvey.org. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  9. ↑ "Royal Geographical Society - Medals and awards". www.rgs.org. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  10. ↑ "Angela Gurnell (2012) | British Society for Geomorphology". www.geomorphology.org.uk. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  11. ↑ "Alfred Wegener Medal & Honorary Membership". European Geosciences Union (EGU). Retrieved 16 January 2022.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.