Dr Christine McCulloch

MSc Teaching Associate

Academic Profile

Dr Christine McCulloch graduated from the King's College / London School of Economics Joint School of Geography and spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at Oberlin College, Ohio before lecturing at Goldsmiths' College and Queen Mary College in the University of London for five years. She joined the Natural Environment Research Council as a senior scientist in 1967. After a career break looking after family, she taught geography in secondary schools before working for the Economic and Social Research Council, latterly as Head of Politics, Economics and Geography Research Support.

Her Master's thesis (1971) was on concepts of river development and her D.Phil. (2004) was on 'Dam decisions and pipe dreams. The political ecology of reservoir schemes (Teesdale, Farndale and Kielder) in North East England." From 2004 to 2006, she worked for the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne on a large EU-funded project on the sustainability of the Dead Sea region with collaborators from Austria, Israel, Jordan and Palestine.

Dr McCulloch is now working in the School of Geography and the Environment on water resource decision-making, the work of British dam engineers in the Jordan valley and on developing a policy for dam decommissioning in UK. She is also serving on an Environment Agency Project Board on a research strategy for reservoir safety.

Selected Publications

  • McCulloch, C.S. (2010) Size matters: plans for the Upper Thames reservoir and the new environmentalism. In, Pepper, A. (ed.) Managing Dams: Challenges in a time of change. Thomas Telford, London. pp. 48-57.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2009) The Water Resources Board: England and Wales' venture into national water resources planning, 1964-73. Water Alternatives, 2(3): 461-475.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2008) Dam Decisions and Pipe Dreams: The Political Ecology of Reservoir Schemes (Teesdale, Farndale and Kielder Water) in North East England. Verlag Dr Muller.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2008) Decommissioning, discontinuation and abandonment of dams: is there a case for a national strategy? In, Hewlett, H. (ed) Ensuring Reservoir Safety into the Future. Thomas Telford, pp. 423-434.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2008) Integrating Research for Water Management: Synergy or Dystopia? Water Resource Management, 21: 2075–2082.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2006) Transparency: aid or obstacle to effective defence of vulnerable environments from reservoir construction? Dam decisions and democracy in North East England. Area, 38(1): 24-33.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2006) The Kielder Water Scheme: the last of its kind? In, Hewlett, H. (ed.) Improvements in reservoir construction, operation and maintenance. London: Thomas Telford.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2006) Integrating research for water management: synergy or dystopia? European Geosciences Union, Vol. 8. Vienna: European Geosciences Union 2006.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2006) DEAD SEA: A future for the Dead Sea Basin: options for a more sustainable water management. INCO International Scientific Cooperation ICA3-CT2002-10019 Deliverable D-5.2. Joint Synthesis Report (based on all deliverables produced by the project team).
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2004) Political ecology of reservoirs in Teesdale. In, Hewlett, H. (ed.) Longterm benefits and performance of dams. London: Thomas Telford.
  • McCulloch, C.S. (2002) Challenging values of dam builders. In, Tedd, P. (ed.) Reservoirs in a changing world. London: Thomas Telford.
Research Clusters