The CCRM Team
Professor Ian Foster BSc PhD C.Geog
Professor of Geomorphology
BSc London, PhD Exeter
Ian is a Geomorphologist with over 30 years research experience working in the UK, Europe, the circum-Mediterranean region and, more recently, in South Africa. After graduating from the Universities of London (King’s College) and Exeter, Ian has spent many years researching land degradation, erosion, water quality and climate change. He has successfully graduated 22 PhD students, has served on committees for a number of academic organisations (e.g. Natural Environment Research Council Peer Review Committee, Field Studies Council Executive Committee, British Geomorphological Research Group (Now the British Society for Geomorphology), Royal Geographical Society, International Association of Sediment Water Sciences) and has undertaken research and consultancy for national and international Government Agencies and companies. He was recently awarded a Hugh Kelly Senior Research Fellowship at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa to research problems of climate change and land degradation. He is currently Visiting Professor of Geomorphology at Rhodes.
Research Interests and Expertise
Thematic Areas:
- Landscape response to climate change and human impacts.
- Land degradation
- Soil erosion, sediment & sediment-associated contaminant transport
- Sediment source tracing
- Water Quality
- Environmental & Public Health
- Water resources
World Regions of Interest:
- UK and N.W. Europe
- Circum-Mediterranean region (Greece, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan)
- South Africa
Specialist Techniques:
- Gamma Spectrometry (dating lake and reservoir sediments using 210Pb and 137Cs)
- Environmental Magnetism
- Sediment Geochemistry
- Laser granulometry.
Examples of Research / Consultancy Topics
- Land degradation in the South African Karoo
- Water quality degradation in UK lakes and reservoirs
- Sediment transport pathways in lowland UK agricultural catchments
- Sediment dynamics in UK urban rivers
- Reservoir sedimentation in the Peloponnese
- The history of Nile sediment transport – applications of environmental magnetism to Lake Qarun sediments
- Radioactive contaminant release and sea level change
- UK tsunami risk
- Dust provenancing and human health risk in Amman, the Jordanian Badia and Tunisia
- Crypotosporidium contamination of upland water supply reservoirs
Selected Recent Publications
- Foster IDL, Boardman J and Gates. 2008. Reconstructing historical sediment yields from the infilling of farm reservoirs, Eastern Cape, South Africa. IN: Sediment Dynamics in Changing Environments (Proceedings of a symposium held in Christchurch, New Zealand, December 2008). IAHS Publ. 325, 139-142.(ISSN 0144-7815).
- Foster IDL, Boardman J and Keay-Bright J. 2007 The contribution of sediment tracing to an investigation of the environmental history of two small catchments in the uplands of the Karoo, South Africa. Geomorphology. 90(1-2) 126-143. (ISSN 0169-555X).
- Lawler DM, Foster IDL, Petts GE, Harper S and Morrisset IP. 2006. Suspended Sediment Dynamics for June storm events in the urbanized River Tame, UK. In Rowan, J.S., Duck, R.W., & Werritty, A (eds) Sediment Dynamics and the Hydromorphology of Fluvial Systems (IAHS Symposium, Dundee, Scotland July 2006). IAHS Pub. 306, 96-103. (ISSN 0144-7815).
- Lawler DM, Petts GE, Foster IDL, and Harper S. 2006. Turbidity dynamics and hysteresis patterns during spring storm events in an urban headwater river system, the Upper Tame, West Midlands. Science of the Total Environment, 360, 109-126. (ISSN 0048-9697).
- Foster IDL and Lees, J.A. 2005. Evidence for past erosional events from lake sediments. In Boardman, J. and D. Favis-Mortlock (eds), Climate Change and Soil Erosion, London, Imperial College Press.
- Foster IDL and 7 others 2003. Late Holocene North Atlantic seesaw and Greenland ice sheet (GISP2) palaeoclimates. The Holocene, 13 (3) 381-392.
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