Teaching Experience

Module Leader for: Practical Biodiversity
Other Modules: Countryside Management, Communities and Ecosystems, Biogeography

Research Interests

My current major research interest is in the development of conceptual and practical approaches to monitoring and evaluating trajectories of ecological change in large-scale wetland restoration projects. I received a research grant of £130,000 for the period 2007-2010 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, to set up an eco-hydrological monitoring programme and to develop protocols for evaluation of re-naturalised wetland habitats at the Great Fen Project and at the Wicken Fen Vision Project in Cambridgeshire. This project has recently been extended to 2012 with a further sum of £90,000 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. I work closely with Pete Stroh who is the project officer for the six years of this project. Pete is based in the Department of Life Sciences (ext 2068 peter.stroh@anglia.ac.uk). I am also a member of the Local Committee for Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire, UK.

I am also involved in a research project on designing a toolkit for measuring Ecosystem Services at the site scale. This project is a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin University, The UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Birdlife international and the RSPB, funded through the Cambridge Conservation Initiative Collaborative fund from April 2010 to May 2011. The project has now been extended with funding from AXA until 2013.

For many years I have carried out research into the ecology, hydrology and restoration of European floodplain forest ecosystems with a particular interest in the regeneration of these forest systems. One of my current interests is in developing 'environmental flows' for riparian ecosystems and integrating these into river management practices. Prior to joining Anglia Ruskin University I was a joint co-ordinator of a series of EU-funded research projects, based in the Geography Department at the University of Cambridge. The most recent of these was called FLOBAR2 'Floodplain Biodiversity and Restoration' funded under the European Union's 5th Framework Programme. These projects have carried out research on floodplain ecosystems in France, Sweden, Germany, the UK and Canada. The final full-colour report of the work can be downloaded at Project Reports website. Prior to that I carried out research on the downstream impacts of dams on riparian and deltaic ecosystems in Canada and Kenya.

Professional Affiliations

• Member of British Ecological Society
• Member of Society for Wetland Scientists
• Member of Wicken Fen Local Committee