Prof Andrew Thomas
BSc Physical Geography (Swansea) PhD (Swansea)

Chair
Department of Geography and Earth Sciences
Contact Details
- Email: ant23@aber.ac.uk
- ORCID: 0000-0002-1360-1687
- Office: E3, Llandinam Building
- Phone: +44 (0) 1970 622781
- Research Portal Profile
Profile
Andrew is a graduate of Swansea University, where he obtained a Geography degree and Ph.D. His doctoral research looked at the impact of fire on soil erosion, slope hydrology and nutrient losses in the eucalyptus and pine forests of central Portugal. He has held lectureship positions at Reading (1997), Salford (1998) and Manchester Metropolitan (2002) Universities where he was made Reader in Physical Geography in 2011. He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Peter Fleming award in 2008 and a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship in 2010. He joined the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth in October 2012.
Teaching
Module Coordinator
- GGM4040 - Geography Integrated Master's Project
- GS29020 - Environmental Science Fieldwork
- EAM4320 - Global Climate Change: Debates and Impacts
- GGM4040 - Geography Integrated Master's Project
Tutor
- EAM4220 - Investigating Environmental Change: Fieldwork
- EAM4320 - Global Climate Change: Debates and Impacts
- GS10520 - Earth Surface Environments
- GS21010 - Chemical Analysis of Natural Materials
- GS34040 - Geography Dissertation
Grader
- GS35240 - Environmental Science Dissertation
- EAM4660 - Dissertation in Environmental Change Impacts and Adaptation
Lecturer
- GS10520 - Earth Surface Environments
- EAM4660 - Dissertation in Environmental Change Impacts and Adaptation
- EAM1120 - Advanced Research Skills 1: science communication and data analysis
- EAM4320 - Global Climate Change: Debates and Impacts
- GGM4040 - Geography Integrated Master's Project
Coordinator
Research
External Group Affiliation * Climate Change Consortium for Wales (Aberystwyth director, from January 2013)
Research Interests
Drylands, soil carbon, soil CO2 efflux, biological soil crusts
Andrew's expertise is in dryland environments, particularly in the Kalahari of southern Africa. He is interested in predicting the effects of climatic and land use change on soils and the carbon cycle. Funding from NERC (CEH/L/027/2007?) and The Leverhulme Trust (RF/4/RFG/2009/0263) allowed him to establish how grazing intensity, rainfall and temperature affect land-atmosphere fluxes of CO2 across the Kalahari. Much of his work has focused on biological soil crusts and their influence over soil erodibility, moisture and nutrient content in drylands. Recently this has taken him to the Makgadikgadi salt pans in northern Botswana, where he has investigated biological and chemical uptake of carbon in hyper-saline and alkaline soils. His current research is quantifying spatial differences in soil respiration and microbial activity in the Kalahari, and determining the relative roles of fungi and bacteria in carbon cycles (The Leverhulme Trust, F/00 426/H). The links between soils, ecosystem services and rural livelihoods in rural southern African environments are a key aspect of his work (NERC NE/I003320/1).