Urban land use disproportionately affects river water quality due to inputs from the catchment, but conversely urban catchments are relatively neglected as a research topic. Water quality in urban areas is often very poor and deteriorates during extreme events like floods and drought. Our research focuses on the effects of extreme events on water quality within an urban environment, measuring key water quality variables water temperature and organic matter (OM) in the river and the contributing catchment during extreme events. Our study area is the city of Birmingham in the UK, which offers a unique opportunity because its headwater catchments are heavily urbanised. These can then be compared with more natural neighbouring catchments.

This research is done by Danny Croghan.

Selected outputs:

  • Croghan et al. (2017a) – Applications of high resolution rainfall radar data to quantify water temperature dynamics in urban catchments – EGU 2017
  • Croghan et al. (2017b) – Characterising Event-Based DOM Inputs to an Urban Watershed – AGU 2017

International network: