Hannah Barnett

Profile

Email: gyhfb@leeds.ac.uk

I am a Geography PhD student, funded by NERC Panorama DTP. Throughout my undergraduate and masters, I have specialised in GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and remote sensing of the cryosphere, although I enjoy applying geospatial techniques to any ecosystem! My PhD is aimed around monitoring the collapse of mountain glaciers (see below) and I have researched similar phenomena in my undergraduate, both through my dissertation and a summer Research Experience Placement (REP) at Leeds with Dr Liam Taylor and Professor Duncan Quincey.

I spent my masters researching a different part of the cryosphere: thermokarst lakes, and understanding how their behaviour and subsequent methane flux is influenced by climate change. I undertook my masters whilst on a year-long research placement with the Nature Based Solutions (NBS) branch of Shell’s BioTechnology Department, in Houston, Texas. During this time, I expanded my remote sensing and GIS skills into NBS ecosystems such as mangroves, experienced research in a commercial setting through providing geotechnical business support, and worked with a range of start-ups, local stakeholders and local academic institutions.

I am excited to be back at Leeds and working with Liam, and I hope to use my experience in both academia and industry to incorporate interdisciplinary and multi-institutional partnerships into my PhD to improve science communication of glacier collapse and move this research out beyond the academic sphere to the people it directly impacts.

Research interests

My research is focused on the real-world disaster risk challenges posed by glacier collapse events. Glacier collapses called sudden detachment events (SDEs) can involve sudden break-offs of the glacier thar results in high-speed debris flows with runout distances of several kilometres. They have devasting and permanent impacts on alpine communities. Examples include the 2022 Marmolada glacier collapse in Italy, which tragically killed 11 people, and the 2025 Blatten ice-rock avalanche and resultant debris flow in Switzerland. Glacier collapses can also take the form of concentric crevasses in funnel-shaped depressions on the glacier surface. Over time, the ice surface to collapses inwards, exposing inner ice to warm air temperatures and liquid water. This further erodes the glacier, and enhances the rate of ice mass loss, with implications for glacier tourism and recreation, and water availability downvalley.

Glacier collapse has direct impacts on communities downstream, with ~2 billion people globally relying on glaciers for water, and two-thirds of global food supply irrigated by glacial meltwater. Accelerated glacier loss also affects tourism, energy generation and security, ecosystems and habitats, and religion and culture. Glacial and mountain hazards are also increasing as the dynamicity of these environments increases with climate change, with devasting and permanent impacts on alpine communities.

My research uses earth observation and in situ remote sensing to identify and model key indicators of collapse. A key knowledge gap is identifying which glaciers are at risk of collapse, to focus in-situ monitoring and observation. My first chapter uses remote sensing and reanalysis data to model liquid water presence in over 99,000 alpine glaciers globally. Liquid water has been shown to be a key driver in sudden detachment events, and our model is the first global attempt to quantify this. My second chapter tests low-cost, in situ monitoring methods on the Zinal glacier in Switzerland. We have sensors in place over Winter and hope to produce the first medium-long term observational dataset of concentric collapses to understand their evolution. This will be supplemented by remote sensing data to quantify impacts on ice mass loss and retreat.

My third chapter aims to use interdisciplinary methods to address the issues of implementing risk reduction systems on the ground. I will use results from interviews, focus groups and surveys, and systems-level thinking, to explore the nature of the interactions between key stakeholders in disaster risk reduction processes from glacier hazards in the Alps. We would like to involve traditional ‘experts’ (academia/science, monitoring agencies), individuals/visitors (e.g. non local hikers, climbers, tourists), local communities, industry (hospitality, tour guides), policy and governance (split by scales of governance, e.g. mayors and local decisionmakers, regional and national, international). By focusing on the flows of knowledge, communication, and power across and between the groups, we aim to identify how the interactions between stakeholders affects disaster response and preparedness. Our primary output will be a cross-stakeholder landscape map and a set of recommendations for reducing and managing risk holistically and inclusively.

Qualifications

• BSc Geography with Applied GIS | University of Exeter
• MSc by Res in Physical Geography | University of Exeter

Research groups and institutes

• River Basin Processes and Management