POL scientists Podcast - Our changing estuaries

1 July 2009

POL scientist Professor Peter Thorne has been interviewed by the environmental research news website Planet Earth Online. The interview concerned the Dee Estuary and Professor Thorne's team's aim to develop a model that will predict how and when sediment moves around the estuary to stop barges getting grounded on sandbanks in the Dee.

The Dee estuary.

The Dee Estuary in northwest England has been used as a shipping channel since the start of the industrial revolution.

The estuary is full of muddy sediments that move with the tides and are shifted by waves coming into the estuary from the Irish Sea. They change the sandbanks at the entrance to the estuary, moving the shipping channels around in the process and causing other channels to silt up.

Science writer and broadcaster Sue Nelson meets Peter on a windy beach in West Kirby to find out more.

Go to the Planet Earth Online site to hear the interview in full via a Podcast

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Notes

The Proudman Oceanographic (POL) scientific research focuses on oceanography encompassing global sea-levels and geodesy, numerical modelling of continental shelf seas and coastal sediment processes. This research alongside activities of surveying, monitoring, data management and forecasting provides strategic support for the wider mission of the Natural Environment Research Council.

As a public funded body it is part of our remit to inform the public of the science and research undertaken at the laboratory. Attending events like the 'Ocean Awareness Weekend' at the Blue Planet Aquarium offers the opportunity for our scientists to meet members of the public and present the laboratory's work.

The Natural Environment Research Council is one of the UK's eight Research Councils. It uses a budget of about £ 350m a year to fund and carry out impartial scientific research in the sciences of the environment. NERC trains the next generation of independent environmental scientists. It is addressing some of the key questions facing mankind, such as global warming, renewable energy and sustainable economic development.