Why Study Environmental Processes and Systems in New Zealand?

New Zealand is a very long way away, and thus expensive to get to. So it is an obvious question to ask why go all that way?;
why not the European Alps?; why not Scandinavia?

There are several very good reasons why environmental processes and systems in New Zealand are unique and thus deserve attention.
In particular, we focus on the Southern Alps because:

New Zealand is surrounded by the World’s greatest oceans. It thus has a maritime-dominated climate. Environmental processes are different here, and landscape change (perhaps in response to global climate change) proceeds in a different manner, or at a different rate to that northern hemisphere locations. This is because the northern hemisphere contains vastly more land mass than the southern hemisphere and land responds far faster to changing air temperatures than does an ocean.

The Southern Alps is one of the most tectonically active regions of the world. It has uplift rates greater than the Himalaya,
for example.

• 
  Perhaps as a consequence of the above, the Southern Alps has one of the greatest sediment production rates in the world.
  Thus the effects of land-forming processes are extremely visible.
• 
  There is a very strong west-east divide in climate across the Southern Alps. There is thus an incredible variety of landscapes
  in a relatively small space! For example, it gives rise to steep high-relief precipitation-dominated glaciers on the west coast, ~
  and hanging or down-wasting valley glaciers in the eastern side of the divide.
• 
  Much of the Southern Alps remains unsettled, and of ‘wilderness’ status.
  This means that environments are in a relatively pristine and natural state.
• 
  New Zealand is a biogeographically isolated country, so organisms have evolved in isolation from the rest of the gene pool.
  Thus there are literally hundreds of endemic species.
  
  

Plus:

• It is logistically easy. Many scientifically interesting areas are highly accessible by vehicle.
• Several members of staff have a research history in New Zealand, and have strong contacts at academic
  and regional authority institutions.
• It is an English-speaking country.
• It is relatively cheap (once you are there)

For further information please contact Dr Jonathan Carrivick