A new doctor-patient relationship in landform and landscape studies?

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Time: 5.00pm
Venue: Clattern lecture theatre, Penrhyn Road campus, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE
Price: free
Speaker(s): Professor Nick Clifford, King's College London

In the aftermath of the hurricane Katrina floods in the lower Mississippi, considerable scientific and popular concern was raised regarding the historic sediment load of the river, and the ability or otherwise of the contemporary river to provide sediments to form natural coastal protection via its delta and marshes. The lower Mississippi is intensively monitored - and has been for over 150 years - but an apparently simple question relating to the amount and calibre of sediments, and their role in coastal protection required a major effort to compile, combine and visualise available from multiple sources, ultimately with no conclusive answer!

The case study is an exemplar of an emerging field of ‘critical physical geography' and ‘cultural geomorphology' where landscapes and landforms have to be ‘read' rather than simply studied or explained. Using the analogy from medicine, the lecture extends these newer forms of enquiry, examining the deepening nature of explanation and prediction in larger-scale landscape study in relation to hybrid issues which span the physical, social and economic domains.

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Contact: Professor Nigel Walford
Email: nwalford@kingston.ac.uk