Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford

• +44 (0)1865 285085
• sallie.burrough@ouce.ox.ac.uk

• Ecosystems Theme

Sallie Burrough is a Quaternary Scientist with a research focus on African drylands and landscape/ecosystem responses to climate variability over long timescales. She also has a particular interest in examining the impact of past environmental change on human occupation and landscape use in central Southern Africa over the last 200,000 years.

Following four years as a Leverhulme postdoctoral researcher and Junior Research Fellow at Hertford College, she now holds the post of Trapnell Fellow in African Environments with the Environmental Change Institute, taking up a National Geographic Global Exploration Award to undertake new research on long-term environmental change in the remote Makgadikgadi salt pans in northern Botswana. She is also deputy director of the Oxford Luminescence Dating Laboratory and leads a number of projects which seek to improve the accuracy and applicability of Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) in research on long term environmental change.

Megalake records of Kalahari climate change: testing the asymmetry of African Humid Periods

The Makgadigadki saltpans, located in Botswana in the middle Kalalhari, occupy a basin once filled by one of Africa’s largest lakes. Evidence suggests that the lake has come and gone on several occasions during the last 200 thousand years. This research examines the potential of sediment cores, drilled from the lake bed, to reconstruct rainfall patterns and ecosystem responses in central Southern Africa, a region which lacks good records on past climate conditions. The overarching aim of the project is to test theories of long-term climate dynamics on the African continent.

Financial support from National Geographic, the Trapnell Fund & the Fell Fund. The project is in collaboration with the Botswana Geological Survey and researchers at the University of Arizona.

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Landscape archaeology of the Kalahari: How did major hydrological shifts affect Stone Age environmental use in the late Quaternary?

This research aims to systematically investigate the Stone Age archaeology of the Makgadikgadi basin and its relationship to the landscape evolution of the Okavango-Makgadikgadi system. Over the course of three years we hope to classify, characterise and date the abundant lithic artefact scatters associated with the megalake system; use geochemical data and a database of silcrete outcrop geochemistry to investigate the source location of the tools; and determine whether and how the prevailing palaeoenvironmental conditions impacted human use of the landscape.

Photos: Mega-tools and megalakes: The Makgadikgadi salt pans, Northern Botswana.

Financial support from the Leverhulme Trust. The project is in collaboration with researchers at the University of Botswana, the University of Brighton and the University of Oslo.

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The Influence of lake and wetland climate feedbacks on African hydroclimate

The project seeks to improve the robustness of future climate projections for Africa through better representation of surface hydrology in the latest state-of-the-art UK Earth System Model. The idea is to produce an ESM that can dynamically form lakes and wetlands over Africa and which interacts with the wider climate system. We will test (1) whether surface hydrology feedbacks are critical amplifying factors of hydroclimate change, (2) whether feedbacks add complex spatial patterning and are therefore important for regional climate predictions, (3) how these feedbacks modify the inertia of the climate system to external forcing and (4) whether their inclusion can improve the representation of hydroclimate interannual variability.

Financial support from The Leverhulme Trust. This is a collaborative research project between researchers at the University of Reading and the University of Oxford.

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Floods and Droughts of the upper Zambezi Valley, Zambia

This research seeks to understand long term environmental change in Zambias remote western province of Barotseland. We use fossil pollen, charcoal analyses and landscape dynamics to unpick the relationship between ecosystem change and landscape instability, identifying environmental extremes and baselines relevant for human populations past and present.

Financial support from the Leverhulme Trust and the John Fell Fund.
Photos: Coring for long term ecological records in Upper Zambezi Valley, Zambia

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Landscape dynamics in the Kalahari

Using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating we are able to determine the timing of past sediment dynamics. By dating landforms such as shorelines, flood deposits and dunes we can examine the stability and sensitivity of landscapes to past climate change. Projects include both the development of better OSL dating methodologies and their application in dryland systems in Botswana, Namibia and Zambia.

Funding sources include the QRA and the RGS.
Photos:Linear dunes (left) and barchan dunes (right), Northern Kalahari

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2022

• Walsh, E., Caracciolo, L., Ravidà, D., Burrough, S., and Thomas, D. (2022) Holocene fluvial depositional regimes of the Huab River, Skeleton Coast, Namibia. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 1-25.

2021

• Richards, J., Burrough, S., Wiggs, G., Hills, T., Thomas, D., Moseki, M. (2021) Uneven surface moisture as a driver of dune formation on ephemeral lake beds under conditions similar to the present day: a model-based assessment from the Makgadikgadi basin, northern Botswana. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 46(15)(3078-3095).

2019

• Burrough, S.L., Barham, L. and Thomas, D.S.G. (2019) Implications of a new chronology for the interpretation of the Middle and Later Stone Age of the upper Zambezi Valley. Journal of Archaeological Science, 23: 376-389.
• Stone, A., Bateman, M.D., Burrough, S.L., Garzanti, E., Limonta, M., Radeff, G. and Telfer, M.W. (2019) Using a portable luminescence reader for rapid age assessment of aeolian sediments for reconstructing dunefield landscape evolution in southern Africa. Quaternary Geochronology, 49: 57-64.

2016

• Burrough, S.L. (2016) Late Quaternary environmental change and human occupation of the southern African interior. In, Jones, S. and Stewart, B. (eds.) Africa from MIS 6-2: Population Dynamics and Paleoenvironments. Springer. pp. 161-174. ISBN: 978-94-017-7519-9.
• Lancaster, N., Wolfe, S., Thomas, D., Bristow, C., Bubenzer, O., Burrough, S., Duller, G., Halfen, A., Hesse, P., Roskin, J., Singhvi, A., Tsoar, H., Tripaldi, A., Yang, X. and Zárate, M. (2016) The INQUA Dunes Atlas chronologic database. Quaternary International, 410(B): 3-10.
• Thomas, D.S.G. and Burrough, S.L. (2016) Luminescence-based dune chronologies in southern Africa: Analysis and interpretation of dune database records across the subcontinent. Quaternary International, 410 B: 30-45.

2015

• Burrough, S. and Willis, K.J. (2015) Ecosystem resilience to late-Holocene climate change in the Upper Zambezi Valley. The Holocene, 25(11): 1811-1828.
• Burrough, S.L., Thomas, D.S.G., Orijemie, E.A. and Willis, K. (2015) Landscape sensitivity and ecological change in western Zambia. The long-term perspective from a Zambian dambo. Journal of Quaternary Science, 30(1): 44-58.
• Singarayer, J.S. and Burrough, S.L. (2015) Interhemispheric dynamics of the African rainbelt during the late Quaternary. Quaternary Science Reviews, 124: 48-67.

2013

• Burrough, S.L. and Thomas, D.S.G. (2013) Central southern Africa at the time of the African Humid Period: A new analysis of Holocene palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimate data. Quaternary Science Review, 80: 29-46.
• Willis, K.J., Bennett, K.D., Burrough, S.L., Macias-Fauria, M. and Tovar, C. (2013) Determining the response of African biota to climate change: using the past to model the, future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 368(1625): 201204911-201204919.

2012

• Burrough, S.L., Breman, E. and Dodd, C. (2012) An insight into past vegetation of the Middle Kalahari Palaeolakes during the late Quaternary. Journal of Arid Environments, 82: 156-164.
• Burrough, S.L., Thomas, D.S.G., Bailey, R.M. and Davies, L. (2012) From landform to process: morphology and formation of lake-bed barchan dunes, Makgadikgadi, Botswana. Geomorphology, 161-162: 1-14.
• Thomas, D.S.G. and Burrough, S. (2012) Interpreting geoproxies of late Quaternary climate change in African drylands: implications for understanding environmental change and early human behaviour. Quaternary International, 253: 5-17.
• Thomas, D.S.G., Burrough, S. and Parker, A.G. (2012) Extreme events as drivers of early human behaviour in Africa? The case for variability, not catastrophic drought. Journal of Quaternary Science, 27(1): 7-12.

2011

• Thomas, D.S.G. and Burrough, S.L. (2011) Climatic frameworks: legacies from the past. Chapter 3 in, Thomas, D.S.G. (ed.) Arid Zone Geomorphology: Process, Form and Change in Drylands, 3rd Edition. Wiley. 648 pp. ISBN: 9780470519080.

2010

• Telfer, M.W., Bailey, R.M., Burrough, S.L., Stone, A.E.C., Thomas, D.S.G. and Wiggs, G.S.F. (2010) Understanding linear dune chronologies: Insights from a simple accumulation model. Geomorphology, 120(3-4): 195-208.

2009

• Burrough, S. and Thomas, D.S.G. (2009) Hydrological change and early human occupation of the Kalahari, Botswana. In, Blockley, S.P.E., Lane, C.S., Oh, A., Ditchfield, P., Bogaard, A., Langdon, P.G., Schreve, D.C., Thomas, D.S.G. and Bailey, R.M. (eds.) Quaternary Abstracts: The human dimension in rapid environmental change. Quaternary Research Association, Annual Discussion Meeting January 2009, Oxford. 19 pp.
• Burrough, S.L., Thomas, D.S.G. and Bailey, R.M. (2009) Mega-lake in the Kalahari: a late Pleistocene record of the palaeolake Makgadikgadi system. Quaternary Science Reviews, 28(15-16): 1392-1411.
• Burrough, S.L., Thomas, D.S.G. and Singarayer, J.S. (2009) Late Quaternary hydrological dynamics in the middle Kalahari: forcing and feedbacks. Earth Science Reviews, 96(4): 313-326.
• Telfer, M.W., Bailey, R.M., Thomas, D.S.G., Burrough, S. and Stone, A.E.C. (2009) Dated aeolian dune sands: an archive of palaeoenvironments or a victim of stochastics? In, Blockley, S.P.E., Lane, C.S., Oh, A., Ditchfield, P., Bogaard, A., Langdon, P.G., Schreve, D.C., Thomas, D.S.G. and Bailey, R.M. (eds.) Quaternary Abstracts: The human dimension in rapid environmental change. Quaternary Research Association, Annual Discussion Meeting January 2009, Oxford. 64 pp.

2008

• Burrough, S.L. and Thomas, D.S. (2008) Late Quaternary lake-level fluctuations in the Mababe depression: Middle Kalahari palaeolakes and the role of Zambezi inflows. Quaternary Research, 69(3): 388-403.
• Burrough, S.L. and Thomas, D.S.G. (2008) Geomorphological contributions to palaeolimnology on the African continent. Geomorphology, 103(3): 285-298.

2007

• Burrough, S.L., Thomas, D.S.G., Shaw, P.A. and Bailey, R.M. (2007) Multiphase Quaternary highstands at Lake Ngami, Kalahari, northern Botswana. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 253(3-4): 280-299.