“I am extremely proud of the results obtained for this Unit of Assessment and the outstanding impact that our research makes to civil society.
The depth and breadth of our academic achievements are further evidenced by world-leading or internationally excellent research outputs and environment, reflecting a collaborative and interdisciplinary ethos.
These outstanding results are testament to our talented and dedicated academic, research, technical and business support staff – a real collective effort.”
How we did
Overall
An outstanding 88% of our research has been judged as world-leading or internationally excellent.
Research Impact
100% of our impact case studies have been judged as having outstanding or very considerable impacts in terms of their reach and significance.
Environment
87.5% of our research environment has been judged as being conducive to producing research of world-leading or internationally excellent quality and enabling outstanding impact, in terms of its vitality and sustainability
Research Outputs
83.7% of our research outputs have been judged as world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour
Research Director
Unit of Assessment Coordinator
People Involved
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Our Team
Name Role Arnscheidt, J Dr Senior Lecturer Avouac, JP Professor Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geology Beech, S Dr Lecturer in Human (Economic) Geography Benetti, S Dr Head of School of Geography and Environmental Sciences Bhatti, S Dr Lecturer in GIS and Human Geography Breen, C Dr Reader Clark, P Professor Professor of Quaternary Science Cook, S Dr Reader Cooper, A Professor Professor of Coastal Studies Douglas, R Dr Senior Lecturer in Freshwater Science Dunlop, P Professor Senior Lecturer to Professor of Glaciology Forsythe, W Dr Senior Lecturer Hunter, W Dr Lecturer in Geography/Environmental Sciences Jackson, D Professor Professor of Coastal Geomorphology Jordan, P Professor Professor of Catchment Science McDowell, S Dr Senior Lecturer McGonigle, C Dr Senior Lecturer McKenzie, P Dr Senior Lecturer McNabb, R Dr Lecturer in Terrestrial Remote Sensing of Environmental Systems Moore, A Professor Professor of Geographic Information Science Quinn, R Dr Reader Westley, K Dr Research Associate
“Our aim is to undertake research that pushes the boundaries of our discipline. We are delighted that our research impact in REF2021 is joint first in the UK, with 100% of our research impact scoring 4/3*. Further, 83.7% of our published papers were judged to be 4/3* quality.
These results clearly demonstrate that we are the forefront of our field with an internationally excellent department which supports our researchers to produce world-leading and internationally excellent research with world class benefits for society.”
Impact Case Studies and Environment Statement
Changing the approach of water management Research Outputs
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View the outputs
- A global ‘greening’ of coastal dunes: An integrated consequence of climate change?
- Adapting to change in the higher education system: international student mobility as a migration industry
- Aeolian slipface dynamics and grainflow morphologies on Earth and Mars
- Centennial-scale Holocene climate variations amplified by Antarctic Ice Sheet discharge
- Climate and species richness patterns of freshwater fish in North America and Europe
- Consequences of twenty-first-century policy for multi-millennial climate and sea-level change
- Creating liminal spaces of collective possibility in divided societies: building and burning the Temple
- Do subglacial bedforms comprise a size and shape continuum?
- Dynamic vulnerability revealed in the collapse of an Arctic tidewater glacier
- Early deglaciation of the British-Irish Ice Sheet on the Atlantic shelf northwest of Ireland driven by glacioisostatic depression and high relative sea level
- Effect of Area-Level Socioeconomic Deprivation on Risk of Cognitive Dysfunction in Older Adults
- Erosion by an Alpine glacier
- Estimating fuel poverty at household level: An integrated approach
- Extent and retreat history of the Barra Fan Ice Stream offshore western Scotland and northern Ireland during the last glaciation
- Extreme wave activity during 2013/2014 winter and morphological impacts along the Atlantic coast of Europe
- Geomorphic and stratigraphic signals of postglacial meltwater pulses on continental shelves
- Global glacier mass changes and their contributions to sea-level rise from 1961 to 2016
- Improving the identification of hydrologically sensitive areas using LiDAR DEMs for the delineation and mitigation of critical source areas of diffuse pollution
- Integrated climate-chemical indicators of diffuse pollution from land to water
- International student mobility: the role of social networks
- Large-scale transgressive coastal dune behaviour in Europe during the Little Ice Age
- Late Quaternary sea-level change and evolution of Belfast Lough, Northern Ireland : new offshore evidence and implications for sea-level reconstruction
- Lower edge of locked Main Himalayan Thrust unzipped by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake
- Maximum extent and dynamic behaviour of the last British Irish Ice Sheet west of Ireland
- Millennial-scale variability in Antarctic ice-sheet discharge during the last deglaciation
- Oceanic forcing of penultimate deglacial and last interglacial sea-level rise
- Optimising protocols for high-definition imaging of historic shipwrecks using multibeam echosounder
- Persistence and risk: salt production in post-medieval Ireland
- Persistent millennial-scale glacier fluctuations in Ireland between 24 ka and 10 ka
- Prioritising sites for pollinators in a fragmented coastal nectar habitat network in Western Europe
- Processes and patterns of flow, erosion, and deposition at shipwreck sites: a computational fluid dynamic simulation
- Similar scaling laws for earthquakes and Cascadia slow-slip events
- Simulating micro-scale thermal interactions in different building environments for mitigating urban heat islands
- Slip pulse and resonance of the Kathmandu basin during the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Nepal
- Storm Event Suspended Sediment-Discharge Hysteresis and Controls in Agricultural Watersheds: Implications for Watershed Scale Sediment Management
- The Ancient Britons: Groundwater fauna survived extreme climate changes over tens of millions of years across NW Europe
- The Applicability of the Distribution Coefficient, KD, Based on Non-Aggregated Particulate Samples from Lakes with Low Suspended Solids Concentrations
- The concentration-discharge slope as a tool for water quality management
- The dune effect on sand-transporting winds on Mars
- Threshold for sand mobility on Mars calibrated from seasonal variations of sand flux
- Transfer of antibiotic resistance genes between Enterococcus faecalis strains in filter feeding zooplankton Daphnia magna and Daphnia pulex
- Transitional optics: Exploring liminal spaces after conflict
Explore our research and expertise
Addressing regional and international challenges and impacts in the 21st Century.