Dr Chris Bradley
Senior Lecturer
Tel: +44 (0)121 41 48097
Fax: +44 (0)121 41 45528
Location: GES 334
Administrative Responsibilities
Programme Leader, Environmental Science and Management
Publicity and Schools Liaison, BSc Environmental Science and Management
Year 1 Tutor, BSc Environmental Science and Management
Hydrodynamics of Floodplain Wetlands
This on-going work seeks to advance ways to investigate the hydrology of lowland floodplain wetlands and includes the modelling of shallow groundwater flows and river-aquifer interaction. Specific research projects have included the modelling of transient water table variations on floodplain wetlands using the USGS groundwater modelling program, MODFLOW (Bradley, 2002). The research has been associated with the use of hydrological data to characterise wetland hydrology, within the context of floodplain / wetland sedimentology. Joint work with David Gilvear (University of Stirling) has investigated the movement of water to and from the water-table at sites in the Insh Marshes, Speyside, using a lysimeter and nests of tensiometers (Gilvear & Bradley, 2000; Gilvear & Bradley, in press).
Other work, recently completed, has included an investigation of the use of stable isotopes to fingerprint water sources from a small headwater wetland in North Shropshire (Clay et al., 2004), and the use of a network of 12 recording tensiometers to identify variations in the direction and rate of water movement through a small upland floodplain wetland near Plynlimon.
Soil – Water fluxes in Macro-porous soils
Many studies of wetland hydrology assume that water fluxes can be estimated using Darcy’s Law. The limitations of this approach have been considered in a number of papers that examine water flow through peat deposits, and, for a cracking clay soil at Brimstone Farm, Oxfordshire. Bradley and van den Berg (2005) describe a novel field experiment to determine the hydraulic conductivity of a herbaceous peat deposit, in which four infiltration experiments were conducted on the same isolated peat column. Bradley et al (2005 & In Press) examined seasonal soil-water dynamics in an instrumented plot, comprising four nests of recording tensiometers, in a cracking clay soil, and investigated the factors contributing to macro-pore flow.
Hydrology of Permeable Catchments
A recently completed project (with Dr Tim Grapes) investigated surfacewater - groundwater interactions in a permeable chalk catchment in the UK (the River Lambourn). The project included the modelling of groundwater flows using an enhanced version of MODFLOW (Groundwater Vistas). An extensive flow accretion survey highlighted characteristic variations in seepage to and from the river, related to catchment topography.
On-going work in the Tern Catchment (North Shropshire) with A. Baker is investigating carbon fluxes from small riparian wetlands, and looking at the connectivity between the river and different floodplain units. A further project with A. Milner and J. Crossman seeks to understand the Hydro-ecology of Upwelling Zones in the Denali National Park, Alaska.
Bradley, C. 2002. Simulation of the annual water table dynamics of a floodplain wetland, Narborough Bog, UK. Journal of Hydrology, 261, pp. 150-172
Bradley, C., Mosugu, M, & Gerrard AJ. 2005. Simulation modelling of water movement in a cracking clay soil. Soil Use and Management. 21, 386-395
Bradley, C., Mosugu, M & Gerrard AJ. In Press. Seasonal dynamics of soil-water pressure in a cracking clay soil. Catena.
Bradley, C. & van den Berg, JA. 2005. Infiltration mechanisms in a herbaceous peat: results of an infiltration experiment. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 50 (4) pp. 713-725
Gilvear, D & Bradley, C. (In press). Hydrological dynamics II. groundwater and hydrological connectivity. Forthcoming chapter in "The Wetlands Handbook", edited by E. Maltby.
Grapes, T, Bradley, C & Petts, GE. 2005. Spatial and temporal dynamics of river - aquifer interaction along a Chalk stream: the River Lambourn, UK. Hydrological Processes. 19, 2035-2053.
Grapes, T, Bradley, C & Petts, GE. 2006. Hydrodynamics of floodplain wetlands in a Chalk catchment: the River Lambourn, UK. Journal of Hydrology. 320, 324-341.
T. R. Grapes. August 2003. Groundwater – River Interaction in a Chalk Catchment: the River Lambourn, UK. NERC Studentship.
A. Clay. March 2006. Hydrodynamics of floodplain wetlands: River Tern (Shropshire) and Afon Llwyd (Plynlimon). NERC Studentship.
J. Crossland. Hydro-ecology of Upwelling Zones in a Glacierised Catchment, Denali National Park, Alaka. NERC Studentship.
Date Profile Last Updated: 30/08/2006
