Ian is a Professor of River Science at the University of Worcester and teaches on the Geography and Environmental Management and Sustainability degrees. He is a member of the University’s Sustainable Environments Research Group. His teaching & research interests are in Interdisciplinary River Science, Sustainable Water Management, Natural Flood Management (NFM) and Nature-Based Solutions to combat the effects of climate change, and Conservation Agriculture. He has a passion for fieldwork, labwork and computer practicals (teaching & research) and environmental monitoring. He leads the Mountain Environments Field Course to the European Alps each year.
The main focus of Ian’s research is on developing methods for i) measuring, mapping and monitoring the hydromorphology of streams and understanding how this influences habitat hydraulics and ii) the use of drones for ultra-high resolution remote sensing of river morphology, the measurement of river velocity and river discharge, and to quantify soil erosion for conservation agriculture and NFM. He has had a UK Civil Aviation Authority approved drone pilot’s licence since 2011 and has flown the University’s drones for teaching and research in the UK, Chile, Switzerland, Slovenia and Malawi. Ian is also experienced in using web-based software (SCIMAP / SCALGO Live) for the strategic identification of sites for NFM. He is responsible for postgraduate research supervision (MPhil / PhD) in Physical Geography and Environmental Science and carrying out and project managing funded research contracts.
He has extensive project management experience including writing tenders, appointing staff, planning and managing multiple concurrent projects and assigning staff workloads, data analysis and report writing.
Ian has been a Severn Rivers Trust Trustee since 2019.
