External links
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Scientific databases | |
| Other | |
David S. G. Thomas is a British scientist and geographer. He was born at his parents' home in River, near Dover, Kent, UK, in October 1958. He is Professor of geography at the University of Oxford, the fifth person to hold the Statuary Chair, and a Professorial Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford.
His research deals with desertification, dryland environments, climate change and other environmental phenomena. Recent research has focussed on desert geoarchaeology, dryland bioenergy and long-term environmental change in deserts. He received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. Between 1984 and 2004 he taught and researched at the University of Sheffield, where he rose from lecturer to senior lecturer then full professor by 1994, and was head of department. he has authored many scientific papers (over 200 by 2022) and 11 books including second and third editions. He has been vice-president of the Royal Geographical Society (twice) and president of the British Geomorphological Research Group (now British Society for Geomorphology. His research interests have seen significant activity in Africa, especially in the Kalahari and Namib Deserts and surrounding areas, and in Arabia and India.
In 2011 he received the Farouk El-Baz Award from the Geological Society of America for his contributions to desert science.
He received the Royal Geographical Society's Victoria Medal in 2018 for his world leading research in desert environments and desert societies.
Amongst his many professional roles, he chaired the Geography and Environmental Studies for the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 from 2017 to 2022.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Scientific databases | |
| Other | |
Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and overexploitation of soil as a result of human activity.
Erosion is the action of surface processes that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distinct from weathering which involves no movement. Removal of rock or soil as clastic sediment is referred to as physical or mechanical erosion; this contrasts with chemical erosion, where soil or rock material is removed from an area by dissolution. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres.
Physical geography is one of the two fields of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere, as opposed to the cultural or built environment, the domain of human geography.
Soil erosion is the denudation of the upper layer of soil. It is a form of soil degradation. This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, water, ice (glaciers), snow, air (wind), plants, and animals. In accordance with these agents, erosion is sometimes divided into water erosion, glacial erosion, snow erosion, wind (aeolean) erosion, zoogenic erosion and anthropogenic erosion such as tillage erosion. Soil erosion may be a slow process that continues relatively unnoticed, or it may occur at an alarming rate causing a serious loss of topsoil. The loss of soil from farmland may be reflected in reduced crop production potential, lower surface water quality and damaged drainage networks. Soil erosion could also cause sinkholes.
Geomorphology is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth's surface. Geomorphologists seek to understand why landscapes look the way they do, to understand landform and terrain history and dynamics and to predict changes through a combination of field observations, physical experiments and numerical modeling. Geomorphologists work within disciplines such as physical geography, geology, geodesy, engineering geology, archaeology, climatology, and geotechnical engineering. This broad base of interests contributes to many research styles and interests within the field.
Nick Middleton is a British physical geographer and supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He specialises in desertification.
An aridity index (AI) is a numerical indicator of the degree of dryness of the climate at a given location. A number of aridity indices have been proposed ; these indicators serve to identify, locate or delimit regions that suffer from a deficit of available water, a condition that can severely affect the effective use of the land for such activities as agriculture or stock-farming.
Andrew Shaw Goudie is a geographer at the University of Oxford specialising in desert geomorphology, dust storms, weathering, and climatic change in the tropics. He is also known for his teaching and best-selling textbooks on human impacts on the environment. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of forty-one books and more than two hundred papers published in learned journals. He combines research and some teaching with administrative roles.
David William Rhind is a British geographer and expert on geographic information systems (GIS). He was Vice-Chancellor of City University, London, until July 2007.
Sir Ronald Urwick Cooke, FRGS DL is a Professor of geography and geomorphology who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of York from 1993 to 2002.
David Leslie Linton was a British geographer and geomorphologist, was professor of geography at Sheffield and Birmingham, best remembered for his work on the landscape development of south-east England with S. W. Wooldridge, and on the development of tors.
Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. The first recorded use of the word γεωγραφία was as a title of a book by Greek scholar Eratosthenes. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be. While geography is specific to Earth, many concepts can be applied more broadly to other celestial bodies in the field of planetary science. One such concept, the first law of geography, proposed by Waldo Tobler, is "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical sciences".
Michael Mortimore was a British geographer and a prolific researcher of issues in the African drylands. He was an academic in Nigerian universities for over 25 years. He ran a British research consultancy, Drylands Research. He is best known for an anti-Malthusian account of population-environment relationships, More People, Less Erosion, and field-based studies of adaptation to drought.
Andrew Warren is a British physical geographer. He is Emeritus Professor of Geography at University College London, UK.
Land or ground, also known as dry land, is the terrestrial surface of Earth that is not permanently submerged in water. It makes up 29% of Earth's surface and includes the continents and a variety of small islands. The zone where land meets sea or lakes is known as the coast. Land is an important part of Earth's climate system and plays important roles in the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, and water cycle. Though modern terrestrial plants and animals evolved from aquatic creatures, Earth's first cellular life likely originated on land. Several scientific disciplines study land, including geology and geography. One-third of land is covered in trees, 15% in crops, and a tenth in permanent snow and glaciers. Earth's land surface is almost entirely covered by regolith, a surface layer of rock, soil and minerals that forms the outer part of Earth's crust.
Paul A. Shaw is a physical geographer and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Caroline King-Okumu is an international development opportunities manager for the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. She was formerly a senior researcher for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her major areas of research are dryland ecosystems, economic and environmental assessment, and climate change. She is considered an international expert on land and water management, particularly drylands agriculture. King-Okumu is based in Kenya but is involved in research and projects throughout the world.
Climatic geomorphology is the study of the role of climate in shaping landforms and the earth-surface processes. An approach used in climatic geomorphology is to study relict landforms to infer ancient climates. Being often concerned about past climates climatic geomorphology considered sometimes to be an aspect of historical geology. Since landscape features in one region might have evolved under climates different from those of the present, studying climatically disparate regions might help understand present-day landscapes. For example, Julius Büdel studied both cold-climate processes in Svalbard and weathering processes in tropical India to understand the origin of the relief of Central Europe, which he argued was a palimpsest of landforms formed at different times and under different climates.
Timothy Peter Burt is a British geographer, academic, and academic administrator. He was Master of Hatfield College, Durham and Professor of Geography at the University of Durham between 1996 and 2017. He had previously taught at Huddersfield Polytechnic, the University of Oxford, and Keble College, Oxford.
