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Colin WOODROFFE

Position: Professor
Room: 41.G05
Phone: +61 2 4221 3359
Email: colin_woodroffe@uow.edu.au

Research Interests

Colin Woodroffe is a coastal geomorphologist, with an international research focus on the morphology, stratigraphy and sedimentary dynamics of tropical and subtropical coasts, and the application of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to the study of processes and change in the coastal zone. The wide range of his interests is summarised in his recent book Coasts: form process and evolution (2003). He has active research projects in the following areas:

  Morphodynamics of estuaries and deltas
 Reef morphology and sedimentation
 Coral paleoclimatology and ocean circulation
 Reef island evolution and climate change
 GIS and the coast

Representative Publications

Short, A.D. and Woodroffe, C.D. 2009 The Coast of Australia, Cambridge University Press, 288pp.
http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521873987

Woodroffe, C.D., B. Samosorn, Q. Hua, and D.E. Hart (2007) Incremental accretion of a sandy reef island over the past 3000 years indicated by component-specific radiocarbon dating, Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L03602, doi:10.1029/2006GL028875.

Woodroffe, C.D. (2007) Critical thresholds and the vulnerability of Australian tropical coastal ecosystems to the impacts of climate change.  Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, 50, 469-473.

Woodroffe, C.D., Kennedy, D.M., Brooke, B.P. and Dickson, M.E. (2006) Geomorphological evolution of Lord Howe Island and carbonate production at the latitudinal limit to reef growth. Journal of Coastal Research, 22, 188-201.

Woodroffe, C.D., Nicholls, R.J., Saito, Y., Chen, Z. and Goodbred, S.L. (2006) Landscape variability and the response of Asian megadeltas to environmental change, In Harvey, N. (ed) Global Change and Integrated Coastal Management: The Asia-Pacific Region, Springer, pp. 277-314.

Woodroffe, C.D., Kennedy, D.M., Jones, B.G. and Phipps, C.V.G., 2004. Geomorphology and Late Quaternary development of Middleton and Elizabeth Reefs. Coral Reefs, 23: 249-262.

Woodroffe, C.D. (2003) Coasts, form, process and evolution. Cambridge University Press, 623pp.

Woodroffe, C.D., Beech, M.R. and Gagan, M.K. (2003) Mid-late Holocene El Nino variability in the equatorial Pacific from coral microatolls. Geophysical Research Letters 30, 1358-1361.

Kennedy, D.M. and Woodroffe, C.D. (2002) Fringing reef growth and morphology: a review. Earth Science Reviews 57, 255-277.

Searchable Publication List

Current Students

PhD students

Golam Mahabub Sarwar - Sea-level rise and the Coast of Bangladesh

Naomi Biribo - Shoreline Change on atoll islands, Kiribati

Gareth Davies – Morphodynamics of tide-dominated estuaries

Javier Leon - GIS and reef processes