Research group: Biogeomorphology and ecosystem engineering for sustainable environments
Investigating how ecosystem engineering by animals and plants changes landscapes and can benefit or hinder sustainability goals.
About
About our research
Animals and plants are seldom passive occupants of the places where they live. As they grow, move, trample, feed, fight, secrete, construct, dig and burrow, they can modify landscapes. They affect the erosion, transport and deposition of soils, sediments and rocks, and associated contaminants and carbon. They do this by directly moving materials, or by conditioning materials to be more or less mobile during floods and other earth-sculpting processes.
This ecosystem engineering — or biogeomorphology — can provide us with benefits and opportunities. It also presents some risks, especially where invasive animals are introduced to landscapes that have not coevolved with them.
We investigate how biogeomorphological processes affect sediment fluxes, landscape change, habitat provision and ecosystem health. We also explore the societal opportunities and hazards that follow.
Our work uses laboratory and field experimentation, as well as field observations. The BIoGeomorphology (BIG) lab will be the hub of this activity, with:
- a new 10m tilting flume
- particle image velocimetry
- ultrasonic water level monitoring
- digital scanning
- sediment transport measurement
Biogeomorphology at Manchester Met
Our focus on three-way interactions between physical geomorphological processes, ecological process and environmental management aligns with Manchester Met’s leading sustainability research theme. This includes nature-based solutions and species conservation.
In the Faculty of Science and Engineering, we contribute to the clean energy and environmental sustainability research theme.
Biogeomorphology is a new research area at the University. It builds on the lead researchers’ previous work, for example on how burrowing crayfish change sediment dynamics in rivers and increase flood risk. It will develop to investigate areas such as:
- how sedimentation around saltmarsh plants can augment coastal management and carbon capture
- how sediment movement is integral to the functioning of social behaviours in some fish
- how biofilms interact with river hydraulics and sediment transport
Meet the team
See contact details, publications history, specialisms and more.
Contact information
Contact us
You can contact individual members of the team through their staff profiles.
For general enquiries, please contact our research group lead Professor Stephen Rice.