Tom Coulthard
Professor of Physical Geography
University of Hull
Copyright 2013 Tom Coulthard| All Rights Reserved.
Hello! I am a Professor of Physical Geography,
specialising in fluvial geomorphology, at the
Geography Department, University of Hull,
U.K.
I am also Managing Editor & Co-Founder of
Earth Surface Dynamics, an Open Access
Geomorphology Journal. Links to publications
and software are in the boxes at the top
Modelling fluvial geomorphology
I am the developer of CAESAR and
CAESAR-Lisflood landscape evolution models
(Coulthard et al., 2013). Caesar Lisflood is a
geomorphological / Landscape evolution model
that combines the Lisflood-FP 2d hydrodynamic
flow model (Bates et al, 2010) with the CAESAR
geomorphic model to simulate erosion and
deposition in river catchments and reaches over
time scales from hours to 1000's of years. For
more details click the tab at the page top
Non linear processes in Geomorphology and
earth systems:
Geomorphic systems are often non-linear and
chaotic and I have a long standing interest in how
this reflects in the sedimentary record and basin
behaviour. This includes system 'shredding' and
Self Organised Criticality. Recent examples of this
include publications in Geology and ESurf.
Modelling continental scale
palaeohydrology
Our recenent PLOSone publication on North
African Palaeohydrology showed how lining
Earth System Model (ESM) outputs with
hydrological and hydralic models could be
used to reconstruct Quaternary hydrology at
continental scales. In this case we used it to
reconstuct possible paths for human
migration out of Africa
My research is focused (though not exclusively) in the following areas:
Flash Flooding from Intense Rainfall (FFIR)
As part of the NERC funded £2.8m SINATRA
program we're using CAESAR-Lisflood to
understand the impact of UK flash floods on
sediment delivery and basin change. Especially
considering how future climate change may impact
on flood risk and morphological change