Ecohazards & fluid dynamics of a mixed bedrock-alluvial river
As a part of my postdoctoral research at SFU, I am studying ecohazards in the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada. The 2018 Big Bar Landslide demonstrated the potentially catastrophic hazard of landslides on salmon migration. I am a part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers looking to understand the landslide history and fluid dynamics of the Fraser River and their impact on salmon migration.
My main focuses in this work are:
I am also contributing to projects on:
See this excellent video from Hakai Media describing this project |
Drone photo of Iron Canyon, showing the dramatic constriction between the unconfined alluvial reach and narrow bedrock reach.
Canyons like this can represent real hazards for salmon migration, both through increased velocity in the narrow bedrock sections and through increased risk to mass wasting events like landslides and rockfalls. Photo from October, 2022
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Tectonic geomorphology of Taiwan
My main focus in my PhD research was to investigate potential feedbacks between uplift, erosion, and bedrock strength, by examining how the rate and mechanism of bedrock river incision varies across the Taiwan Central Range.
I collected a suite of paired UAV (uncrewed aerial vehicles) and field surveys to map channel morphology, sediment cover & caliber, bedrock structure, and more across over 60 kilometers of bedrock river channel. |
Grain scale sediment transport and patch evolution in steep rivers
Remote sensing for forest inventory and biomass
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Powdermill Nature Reserve was 'lucky' to be hit by a tornado in 2012. The storm provided a research opportunity to look at how forests recover from disturbance, and started many research opportunities for looking at how recovery is affected by practices like salvage logging, deer exclusion, and more. However, this project-- like many in forestry and ecology-- requires tracking changes across the forest at the tree and stand level over time.
I worked on developing methods to efficiently monitor the forest and track its recovery, using relatively cheap, consumer grade UAVs and structure from motion photogrammetry. We then developed an automated workflow in GIS that would identify the position, structure, and diameter of each tree in the surveyed region. These tools can be used for rapidly measuring biomass in deciduous forests, as well as tracking change at the tree level. Publications:
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Virtual reality for geoscience education
I contributed to developing a suite of virtual reality field trips (VFTs) that can be used to supplement and expand existing field opportunities. Current VFTs include using earthquakes and volcanoes to explore plate tectonics, exploring the stratigraphy across the carbonate to siliciclastic transitions in Central PA, and interpreting the geologic history of Pennsylvania through topography.
Publications:
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