Biography

Malcolm is a Reader in Engineering Geomorphology and Natural Hazards at the University of Portsmouth, with extensive commercial experience in natural hazard assessment and terrain evaluation, working with re-insurance, engineering geology and infrastructure clients, applying his field gemorphological mapping, hazard assessment, GIS and remote sensing skills on a range of geohazard and terrain evaluation projects. He also provides technical advice on natural hazards to a range of re-insurance and geoscience clients.

His research interests span global modelling of natural hazard distributions to landslide susceptibility assessment in mountainous regions of the world. I have a particular interest in spatial modelling using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing; and in particular the application of numerical simulation and probabilistic modelling to study and forecast natural hazards.

He has extensive expertise in terrain evaluation and geomorphological mapping; specialising in application of remote sensing and field mapping to hazard and risk assessment for linear infrastructure and civil engineering projects.

He also dabbles in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV or drones) and use of Virtual Reality (VR) for mapping and visualising natural hazard landscapes.

All of these activities feed directly into his teaching, where he uses case studies and examples in lectures and practical sessions to make his teaching as exciting and real world as possible.

Research interests

Current research projects a study onm the global dfistributions of different natural hazards, landslide hazard assessment in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China using remote sensing and GIS, numerical modelling of natural hazards. I have a number of active research students working on MSc and PhD level research projects in geomorphology, terrain evaluation and remote sensing.