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School of Geography

Professor Gemma Harvey

Gemma

Professor of Physical Geography

Email: g.l.harvey@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 2722
Room Number: Geography Building, Room 212

Profile

My research focuses on biogeomorphology and landscape restoration and rewilding. This includes theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding the feedbacks between plants and animals and Earth surface processes, and how these influence landscape restoration and management. This informs best practice in river restoration and flood risk management, invasive species management and, most recently, nature recovery approaches and carbon credit protocols. My research is strongly interdisciplinary and involves close collaboration with ecologists, environmental engineers, soil scientists, economic and cultural geographers and artists.

I work with local and national stakeholders in the environmental sector, including pioneering rewilding sites, government agencies, NGOs, local action groups and green tech companies on landscape rewilding and urban greening projects funded by NERC/ ESRC, Defra/ Environment Agency and Research England. I am a member of the QMUL East London Research Network and QMUL Impact Forum.

I have been Associate Editor for the ‘Water and Life’ domain of influential Wiley journal WIREs Water (Impact Factor: 8.2) since 2014.

I currently hold a NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship on Embedding environmental and geospatial science in nature recovery and rewilding (2024-26). I previously held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (Natures engineers: uncovering signatures of life in landscapes, 2022-23) funding my research on the role of animals in landform and landscape evolution.

Key publications:

  • Harvey GL and Henshaw AJ (2023) Rewilding and the water cycle. WIREs Water. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1686
  • Cashman MJ, Harvey GL and Wharton G (2021) Structural complexity influences the ecosystem engineering effects of in‐stream large wood. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms46(10): 2079-2091.
  • Harvey GL, Henshaw AJ, Brasington J and England J (2019) Burrowing invasive species: an unquantified erosion risk at the aquatic-terrestrial interface. Reviews of Geophysics. DOI:10.1029/2018RG000635.
  • Harvey GL, Henshaw AJ, Parker C, Sayer CD. (2018) Re-introduction of structurally complex wood jams promotes channel and habitat recovery from overwidening: Implications for river conservation. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems: 28: 395-407.
  • Tempest JA, Harvey GL and Spencer KL (2015) Modified sediments and subsurface hydrology in natural and recreated saltmarshes and implications for delivery of ecosystem services. Hydrological Processes 29: 2346–2357 DOI: 10.1002/hyp.10368.
  • Harvey, G. L., Henshaw, A.J., Moorhouse, T.P., Clifford, N. J., Holah, H., Grey, J. and Macdonald, D. W. (2014) Invasive crayfish as drivers of fine sediment dynamics in rivers: field and laboratory evidence. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 39: 259-271.
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