Physical Geography

From investigating the ways in which the world’s largest rivers shape their landscapes, to examining the impacts of iceberg scour on the sea-bed, our Physical Geography staff and PhD students at the University of Brighton are at the leading edge of process and landform analysis and modelling. 

The  Physical Geography Physical Geography programme offered at the University of Brighton University of Brighton we are working to unravel evidence of past environmental change, from analyses of climate discourses in historical documents, to research at the interface of geomorphology and archaeology.

Key facts

As a Physical Geography PhD student at Brighton, you will benefit from:

• a supervisory team comprising two or sometimes three members of academic staff. Depending on your research specialism you may also have an additional external supervisor from another School, another research institution, or industry.

• desk space and access to a desktop PC, either in one of the postgraduate offices on the 6th floor of the award-winning Cockcroft Building, or within the adjacent Heavy Engineering Block.

• access to a range of electronic resources via the university’s Online Library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the Aldrich Library and other campus libraries.

• various state-of-the-art research facilities on the Moulsecoomb site, including specialist microbial and water quality laboratories, hydraulic flumes, an experimental river basin, a water efficiency laboratory, geochemical and geotechnical laboratories, microscopy laboratories (optical and scanning electron microscopes), and a concrete laboratory, as well as a large array of field equipment. All of these facilities are supported by a team of dedicated laboratory and workshop technicians.

• laboratories, hydraulic flumes, an experimental river basin, a water efficiency laboratory, geochemical and geotechnical laboratories, microscopy laboratories (optical and scanning electron microscopes), molecular ecology laboratories, ecology laboratory and greenhouses, as well as a large array of field equipment, including state-of-the art drones. All of these facilities are supported by a team of dedicated laboratory and workshop technicians.

Our particular areas of specialism currently include:

• Coastal and estuarine processes and management

• Coastal sediment records

• Duricrusts in tropical landscapes

• Environmental geochemistry

• Flood dynamics

• Fluvial processes and landforms

• Freshwater hydrology and ecology

• Glacial and periglacial sedimentology

• Historical climatology

• Quaternary and Holocene environmental change

• Recent sea level change

• Wetland ecology and management