Waterways Centre

I study how rivers change and what drives their response to floods, human activity and climate change.  As Professor of River Science at the University of Canterbury and Director of the Waterways Centre, I connect research on river processes with the challenges of managing flood risk, erosion and freshwater habitats.

My expertise is in fluvial geomorphology, hydrology and remote sensing, with a particular focus on high-energy, braided rivers.  Their shifting channels and gravel bars are shaped by interactions between flow, sediment transport and bank erosion, which also create and renew habitats.  I investigate how these processes sustain braiding and how changing flood regimes, sediment supply and human interventions alter river behaviour. This understanding helps anticipate changes in river form and processes, and their consequences for flood and erosion risk, ecosystem functioning and the cultural values and services these rivers support.

I develop methods to measure and explain river dynamics, combining bathymetric lidar, satellite observations and numerical modelling to quantify channel change and sediment budgets over timescales from individual floods to decades.  I use these observations to investigate river processes and assess future risks under alternative climate and management scenarios.  A central concern is establishing what we can predict reliably and how uncertainty should inform management and adaptation.

Through the Waterways Centre, I lead a joint university programme of interdisciplinary water research and postgraduate education.  I work with iwi, regional councils, government ministries and agencies and international research partners to bring evidence of river processes and change into decisions about flood management, river restoration and freshwater environments.  Across this work, my focus is on providing a rigorous scientific basis for managing changing river landscapes and adapting to future risks.

Sophie is a hydrologist and coastal geomorphologist, integrating the conveyance of sediment and nutrients through the fluvial system into the coastal margin with the longer-term considerations of landscape trajectory through the lens of shore platforms and marine terrace sequences. Sophie’s research interests are in the contemporary processes that govern sediment transport and mobilisation primarily as the suspended and dissolved flux in rivers in high standing islands, and on hard rock coastlines in neo-tectonic settings. She is particularly interested in event-scale processes of denudation, weathering, and erosion in mountain environments and at the coast, framed around the concept of ki uta ki tai that recognises the intrinsic links between mountains and coastal systems. Within these environments Sophie also works on agricultural land use impacts on nitrate and bacterial contaminants and the mobilisation through surface and subsurface pathways. Methodologically, her work draws on geochemical techniques to trace sediment origins, field-based experiments measuring hydrodynamics and transport capacity, and investigation of how different wave spectra drive geomorphic work.

I am a coastal geomorphologist whose research interests lie at the interface of coastal physical processes, landform evolution, and management. My research aims to understand how interacting physical processes control the morphodynamics and evolution of coastal landforms, and how these processes and landforms are in turn impacted by human activities.

Principle scientific questions that drive my research include: Where is sediment eroded, transported, and stored across the coastal zone? How will coastal landforms respond to changing boundary conditions over tidal to geological timescale? And how does geologic setting influence natural and human processes? To answer these questions, I use a combination of field, lab, and modelling methods to collect empirical data. I then use this data to predict past, present-day, and future behaviour with an emphasis on producing information that is useful for managers and policy makers. My research interests and expertise can be summarised by three semi-overlapping research topics:

1.  estuary entrance processes
2.  the evolution of estuaries and barrier systems, and
3. shoreline change in response to ocean wave processes. 

I am passionate about undertaking research that can contribute to improving our understanding how coastal processes may change in future (e.g. under climate change and sea level rise) and that is useful in practice for coastal communities and managers.

I am interested in understanding how hydrologic systems function, specifically the groundwater component. My research areas include groundwater management, groundwater - surface water interaction and groundwater dynamics in coastal regions. I characterise field systems using various methods and parameters including pressure, conductivity and natural tracers. I test processes and perform sensitivity analyses using analytic, numeric and physical modelling.

I currently serve as Chair of the UC School of Earth and Environment Postgraduate Committee. Previously, I was Associate Editor for Hydrogeology Journal, the flagship journal of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (2019 to 2025), and served on the Marsden Earth Sciences and Astronomy panel (2022 to 2025).

My research is funded through the following MBIE Endeavour research programs:
* Subsurface processes in braided rivers - hyporheic exchange and leakage to groundwater (2019 - 2024, as a Principal Investigator)
* Transforming coastal lowland systems threatened by sea-level rise into prosperous communities (2021 - 2027, as a Principal Investigator)

* Derisking Carbon Dioxide Removal at Megatonne Scale in Aotearoa (2025 - 2030, as an Associate Investigator)