Stuart McLelland

Lecturer in Physical Geography

Department of Geography, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX
Tel: +44 (0)1482 465007; Fax: +44 (0)1482 466340; Email: s.j.mclelland@hull.ac.uk

Background

I studied for my undergraduate degree (BSc Geography) here at Hull and completed my PhD at the University of Leeds (jointly in Geography and Earth Sciences). I then undertook research at Cambridge University and University of Exeter before starting a lectureship here in the Department of Geography in 2000.

My main research interests are in the measurement and physical modelling of flow processes and sediment transport dynamics in river channels. I am particularly interested in the development and application of new techniques for measuring flow and sediment transport dynamics and their application to understanding coherent flow structures. I have undertaken research on dynamic braided rivers in Canada and Bangladesh as well as lowland floodplain rivers in the UK and have used a number of different approaches to identify organised flow patterns in these river systems.

I am responsible for managing research projects undertaken in the Total Environment Simulator (TES) which is a unique facility for environmental, hydraulic and morphological research. The TES is 16m long (working section ~11m), 6 m wide and 1.8 m deep and is designed for scaled physical modelling of sediment transport dynamics and flow hydraulics, enabling detailed measurement of the processes operating at the sediment-fluid interface under a range of complex environmental conditions. Further details on this project can be found at this website.

Teaching

• 16100 : Introduction to Geographical Methods
• 16206 : Field Study Tenerife (leader)
• 16272 : Dynamic Planet
• 16279 : Geomorphology: Processes and Landforms (leader)
• 16394 : Fluvial Processes and Management (leader)
• 16455 : Introduction to Programming for Environmental Monitoring (leader)

I also supervise a number of dissertation students studying topics in fluvial geomorphology.

Research Interests

My recent research projects include:

• I am a member of HYDRALAB III which is a EU Integrated Infrastructure Initiative with a wide range of participants from throughout the EU.
• Modelling of wave turbulence in the TES (with Sergei Lukaschuk in Department of Engineering)
• Development of GPS River Flow Tracers (GRIFTERS)
• Physical modelling of scour around wind turbine piles in tidal flows (with Dr. S. Illic at Lancaster)

Postgraduate Research Students

I am currently second supervisor for Robert Bedard and Angela Kelham. Robert is based in Engineering and he is studying turbulence in waves using the Total Environment Simulator. Angela is in the Department of Geography and is working on post-mortem transport of benthic foraminifera. She is using physical modelling to establishing why some transported assemblages appear to be spatially fractionated according to species.

I have also been involved in supervising 5 other research students, including Richard Stockdale and who has recently submitted his EPSRC funded PhD investigating GPS River Flow Tracers (GRIFTERS).

Publications

Nazarenko, S. Lukaschuk, S. McLelland S. & Denissenko P. (in press). Statistics of surface gravity wave turbulence in the space and time domains, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

McLelland, S.J. (in press) Measuring bedload/suspended load using multi-frequency-acoustic backscatter. in Gray, J.R., Laronne, J.B. and Marr, J.D.G. (eds): Bedload Surrogates Monitoring. US Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report.

Alexander, J., McLelland, S.J., Gray, T.E., Vincent, C.E., Leeder, M.R. and Ellett, S. (2008) Laboratory sustained turbidity currents form elongate ridges at channel mouths, Sedimentology, 55 (4), 845-868.

Stockdale, R.J., McLelland, S.J., Middleton, R. and Coulthard, T. J. (2008). Measuring river velocities using GPS River Flow Tracers (GRiFTers), Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 33 (8), 1315-1322.

Cooper, J.R., Aberle, J., Koll, Ka., McLelland, S.J., Murphy, B.M., Tait, S.J., and Marion, A. (2008) Observation of the near-bed flow field over gravel bed surfaces with different roughness length scales. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Fluvial Hydraulics River Flow 2008, 3-5 September 2008, Cesme, Turkey. Edited by M. Altinakar, M.A. Kokpinar, Aydin, I., Cokgor, S., and S. Kirkgoz, Kubaba, Vol. 1, 739-746.

Koll, K., Tait, S.J., Cooper, J.R., Aberle, J., McLelland, S.J., Murphy, B.M., and Massaro, G. (2008). Estimating flow turbulence characteristics over water-worked gravel beds using LDA and PIV measurement systems. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Fluvial Hydraulics River Flow 2008, 3-5 September 2008, Cesme, Turkey. Edited by M. Altinakar, M.A. Kokpinar, Aydin, I., Cokgor, S., and S. Kirkgoz, Kubaba, Vol. 1, 747-757.

Rumsby, B.T., Brasington, J., Langham, J.A., McLelland, S.J., Middleton R. and Rollinson G. 2008. Monitoring and modelling particle and reach-scale morphological change in gravel-bed rivers: Applications and challenges, Geomorphology, 93(1-2), 40-54.

McLelland, S.J. and Nicholas, A.P. 2000. A new method for evaluating errors in high-frequency ADV measurements, Hydrological Processes, 14, 351-366.

Ashworth, P.J., Bennett, S.J., Best, J.L. and McLelland, S.J. (Eds.), 1996 Coherent Flow Structures in Open Channels, John Wiley and Sons Ltd., Chichester, 733 pp.