School of Geography and the Environment

Research Interests

Groundwater hydrology; recharge estimation; palaeohydrology and climate change; environmental tracers; water resource management; arid and semi-arid environments

Doctoral Project

Owing to numerous tracer-based hydrological studies over the past few decades, it has become known that the groundwaters of many arid zones worldwide are palaeowaters, recharged during wetter climates prior to the Holocene. In such cases, the resources are effectively non-renewable, and should be managed accordingly. These old groundwaters can also be of scientific value, providing unique insights about the climatic regimes during which they were recharged. In the Badain Jaran Desert in Chinese Inner Mongolia, shallow groundwater underlies the whole of the region, and even emerges as spring-fed lakes in some interdune areas, despite hyper-arid conditions. The main aims of my project are to determine the recharge source(s) and residence times of these desert groundwaters, and to assess how recharge rates have changed over time. With increasing pressure on the region's water resources, a clear understanding of this hydrological system will be essential for effective water management strategies.

We will also be constructing a novel record of recharge history, which hopefully will contribute to multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental reconstruction efforts in the region.

The project is built around a geochemical and isotopic approach, making use of major ions, trace constituents, and stable and radioisotopes in groundwater and unsaturated zone moisture. I will supplement these tracer methods with groundwater flow and black box modeling and GIS-based spatial analysis.

My advisors are Prof W. Mike Edmunds (OCWR) and Prof Diana Liverman (ECI). Our first round of fieldwork was completed in July and August 2005 in collaboration with Lanzhou University and University College London.