Clive Agnew

Climatology, hydrology, peatlands, drylands

I am an applied climatologist and hydro-meteorologist working on problems of environmental degradation and environmental status assessment. I have worked extensively in both the drylands and the wetlands of Africa, Europe and the Middle East, developing strategies for the improved management of water shortages at local and regionallevels.

I am currently engaged in studies of wetland hydrology in the UK with an emphasis up boundary layer fluxes and assessing the spatial variability of climate change predictions. There are three main strands to my current work:

• hydro-meteorological investigation of boundary layer fluxes;
• climatological analysis of the impacts of climate change; and
• hydrological responses to restoration of degraded peatlands.

Wetlands (upland and lowland) are employed to model evaporation and subsurface moisture/energy fluxes leading to revisions of penman-monteith and MORECS/MOSES operational estimates. Recent results revise our understanding of surface resistances, spatial variations and the use of the equilibrium model.

Examination of thecomplex linkages between drought and land degradation has questioned the simplistic notions of regional homogeneity and lack of effective monitoring, leading to debate on the possible artefact introduced into the climate record through 20th Century network changes.

The implications of this are significant and raise questions about unmapped spatial variability in climate forecasts and the incidence of drought.

PhD students (completed)

Patrick, S 1987 Gully erosion in Gongola and Bauchi states, Nigeria PhD University of London.

Sule, A.R. 1994 Estimation of flood extent and depth in the Hadejia-NGuru floodplain. PhD., University of London.

Cox, J. 1995 Wind erodibility of soils in Eastern Botswana PhD., University of London.

Chappell, A. 1995 Geostatistical mapping and ordination analysis of 137Cs derived net soil flux in S.W. Niger. PhD., University of London.

Long,X. 1998 Particulate air pollution in central London: characterisation and source apportionment. PhD., University of London.

Patrick,E. 1999 Rainfall runoff harvesting in Kenya. PhD., University of London.

Gavin, H. 2001 Modelling the hydrology of the North Kent marshes. Due to completion June. PhD., University of London.

Jarred Ahmed 2005 Rainfall harvesting in Jordan PhD. University of Manchester.

Guska-Tucker, D. 2006 Managing wetland evaporation at Pevensey. PhD., University of London.

Steve Daniels 2006 Upland catchment dynamics PhD University of Manchester.

Julia Brown 2008 Participatory approaches to Integrated Catchment Management in South Africa. PhD University of Manchester.