Job title: Associate Professor
Phone: 64 9 373 7599 ext 88440
Office: Rm 556, Human Sciences Building,10 Symonds Street, Auckland
Postal: School of Environment, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland
Email: p.kench@auckland.ac.nz

MA (Hons) Auckland, New Zealand
PhD, UNSW, Australia, Coastal Processes

Research Interests:

As a coastal geomorphologist my principle fields of research interest span, coral reef geomorphology, coastal processes, medium-term coastal change, gravel beach processes and the application of coastal science to support coastal management.

I have an international research programme which focuses on understanding environmental processes in coral reef environments that control reef and reef island development and change. Specific studies have included the evolution of reef islands in The Maldives, Fiji, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands and Great Barrier Reef; wave processes on coral reefs; and, reef island morphodynamics. I have worked extensively in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

At the national scale my research interests are focussed on coastal morphodynamics and processes on gravel beach systems, shore platform processes and medium-scale coastal change.

 

International Collaboration:

Development of a Rapid Carbonate Budget Assessment Protocol for Coral Reefs (2010-2012). This Leverhulme funded Network is establishing and testing new methodologies for the assessment of coral reef health. The project involves researchers from the U.K., Australia, USA, Canada and New Zealand and is currently working at reef sites in the Caribbean (Belize, Bahamas and Bonnaire) and will extend this work to the Indo-Pacific in the near future.

Changing Waves and Coasts in the Pacific (2012-2015). This is a joint research initiative with SPC-SOPAC, University of South Pacific (Fiji), UNESCO-IHE (Netherlands), CSIRO and The University of Auckland. The project aims to improve understanding of coastal hazards in small Pacific islands and will undertake detailed field investigations in Fiji and Tuvalu.

REEForm is a working group of the International Association of Geomorphologists. REEForm was established to enhance research effort into the geomorphic understanding of coral reefs and reef landforms. The international network has undertaken research projects in the Maldives and Great Barrier Reef.

Kench, P.S., Smithers, S.G., McLean, R.F. (in press) Sea level change, coral reef growth and Island Formation in the Northern Great Barrier Reef. Geology.

Perry, C.T., Kench, P.S., Smithers, S.G., Riegl, B., Yamano, H. O'Leary, M.J. (2011) Implications of reef ecosystem change for the stability and maintenance of coral reef islands? Global Change Biology, 17, 3679-3696.

Beetham, E., and Kench, P.S. (2011) Field observations of Infragravity waves and their behaviour on rock shore platforms. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, DOI: 10.1002/esp.2208.

Dickson, M.E., Kench, P.S., Kantor, M.S. (2011) Longshore transport of cobbles on a mixed sand and gravel beach, southern Hawke Bay, New Zealand. Marine Geology, 287, 31-42.

Ogawa, H., Dickson, M.E., Kench, P.S. (2011) Wave transformation on a sub-horizontal shore platform. Continental Shelf Research, 31, 1409-1419.

Morgan, K., Kench, P.S., Ford, R. (2011) Morphological change and sediment flux on an ebb tide delta: Mair Bank, Whangarei Harbour, Northland. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 45, 15-28.

Webb, A.P., and Kench, P.S. (2010) Vulnerability of atoll islands to sea level rise: multi-decadal analysis of island change in the central Pacific. Global and Planetary Change, 72, 234–246.

Kench P.S., Smithers S.L., McLean R.F. and Nichol S.L. (2009) Holocene reef growth in the Maldives: evidence of a mid-Holocene sea level highstand in the central Indian Ocean. Geology, 37(5), 455-458.

Perry C.T., Spencer T. and Kench P.S. (2008) Carbonate budgets and reef production states: a geomorphic perspective on the ecological phase-shift concept. Coral Reefs,

Kench, P.S., McLean, R.F. , Brander, R.W. , Nichol, S.L., Smithers, S.G. , Ford, M.R., Parnell, K.E. and Aslam, M. (2006) Geological effects of tsunami on mid-ocean atoll islands: The Maldives before and after the Sumatran tsunami. Geology, 34,177-180.

Ivamy, M.C. and Kench, P.S. (2006) Hydrodynamics and morphological adjustment of a mixed sand and gravel beach, Torere, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. Marine Geology, 228:137-152.

Kench, P.S., McLean, R.F. and Nichol, S.L. (2005) New model of reef-island evolution: Maldives, Indian Ocean. Geology, 33:145-148.

 

TBA