Colin WOODROFFE Position:   Professor Room:   41.G05 Phone No:   +61 2 4221 3359 Email:   colin@uow.edu.au              Coordinator of GeoQuEST Research Centre

Research Interests

Colin Woodroffe is Coordinator of the GeoQuEST Research Centre. He 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

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

Stephen Barry – Modelling the evolution of atoll reef islands
Pamela Abuodha – Modelling vulnerability to coastal erosion
Gareth Davies – Morphodynamics of tide-dominated estuaries
Javier Leon - GIS and reef processes

Honours and Environmental Science Honours students

Cameron Noakes - Sea-level rise and coastal flooding, Northern Illawarra
Simon Tedder - Determining patterns of beach change using cameras and                              profiling
Jessica-Ann Sanchez - Vulnerability of atoll shorelines to climate change