Zareena Khan
Email: faw754@qmul.ac.uk
Profile
PhD project
The role of animals as geomorphic agents shaping past, present and future landscapes.
Animals can have profound and diverse ‘ecosystem engineering’ impacts on their physical surroundings by directly influencing the creation and transformation of landforms, and modulating fluxes of soils, sediments and water in landscapes. The activities of these zoogeomorphic agents have implications for ecosystem functions such as carbon storage, nutrient cycling and soil water storage, and can facilitate their own survival as well as other species’, yet at least a quarter are vulnerable to extinction. Conserving these species can bring wide-ranging benefits for the ecological communities they support and for landscape resilience, but maximising conservation success will require understanding the extent to which zoogeomorphic impacts are threatened or may have already been lost in contemporary landscapes.
Using a combined literature, meta-analysis and exploratory modelling approach, my research will uncover the nature and significance of animal geomorphic agents in shaping present, past and future freshwater and terrestrial landscapes. New insight into lost or diminished zoogeomorphic processes will help inform contemporary ecosystem management and restoration strategies. Hypothesis-testing of the influence of animals on landscape evolution using numerical modelling can act as a first step towards exploring the nature of zoogeomorphic effects over large temporal and spatial scales.
Research Interests
Geomorphology, Earth surface processes, ecosystem engineering, ecology, landscape restoration
Supervisors
Professor Gemma Harvey, Department of Geography, QMUL
Professor Alex Henshaw, Department of Geography, QMUL
Funding
QMUL Principals Studentship
Academic Background
BSc Geography, QMUL
Publications
Khan, Z., Harvey, G. L., Albertson, L. K., Fritz, S. F., Rice, S. P., Johnson, M. F., Bull, J. M. & Moore, G. V. (2026). Signatures of wild animal life in Earth's landscapes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 131(4), e2025JF008351. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JF008351
Harvey, G. L., Khan, Z., Rice, S. P., Johnson, M. F., Viles, H. A., Coombes, M. A., & Albertson, L. K. (2025). Diversity and energy of animals shaping the Earth’s surface. PNAS, 122(8), e2415104122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2415104122
Harvey, G. L., Hartley, A. T., Henshaw, A. J., Khan, Z., Clarke, S. J., Sandom, C. J., England, J., King, S., & Venn, O. (2024). The role of rewilding in mitigating hydrological extremes: State of the evidence. WIREs Water, 11(3), e1710. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1710
Memberships
British Society of Geomorphology