Thomas Dunne

Tom conducts field and theoretical research in fluvial geomorphology and in the application of hydrology, sediment transport, and geomorphology to landscape management and hazard analysis.

He has worked in many parts of the world, including the University of Nairobi, Kenya, where he studied the effects of land use on erosion and river sedimentation, and how climate and hydrology affect long-term hillslope evolution.

At the University of Washington in Seattle, he focused on landsliding and debris flows, as well as tephra erosion and debris-flow generation resulting from the Mount St. Helens eruption. The resource management issues he studied in the Pacific Northwest include the impacts of gravel harvesting on river channels and floodplains and the impacts of timber harvesting on erosion and sedimentation.

At the University of California Santa Barbara, Tom’s group has studied the hydrological effects of Amazonian deforestation, erosion in the Andes, and hydrology, sediment transport, and floodplain sedimentation in the Amazon River basin of Brazil and Bolivia. In California, they study: the effect of sediment supply on channel evolution in gravel-bed rivers; the generation of floodplain channels by cutoff processes; and physical processes related to the habitat of anadromous fish

He returned to investigating the mechanisms generating post-wildfire debris flows after the 2018 Montecito flows devastated his home neighborhood.