Dr Helen Mackay

Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography

What do you do?

I’m an Assistant Professor in Durham’s Geography Department. My research focuses on understanding the ways in which our natural environments are impacted by climate change and human activity.

I use geochemical techniques to develop long-term records of past environmental change from lake sediments that have been accumulating for thousands of years. I then examine how habitats, animals and humans have responded to environmental change in the past, to better understand their resilience to current and future change.

How are you involved in this area of science? 

My research aims to provide long-term environmental context to improve understandings of the rapid changes that we are seeing in Arctic ecosystems today. I reconstruct environmental change using lake sediments, which accumulate over thousands of years and incorporate and preserve fossils of past climate and ecosystem change.

I analyse chemical fossils, called biomarkers, to reconstruct changes in precipitation, temperature, vegetation, nutrient cycling and animals. I then examine how habitats and animal populations have responded to climate change in the past, to better understand how they may change in the future.

Examples of my research include highlighting the vulnerability of seabird populations and migration pathways to changes in sea ice in Greenland; demonstrating the sensitivity of reindeer populations to changes in landscape change and climate in Scandinavia; and characterising impacts of changing hydrology on the strength of peatland carbon sinks in eastern Canada.

What do you love about this topic?

I love using sediment records to explore how climate has changed over thousands of years and how environmental processes of the past have shaped the world we see today. My environmental reconstructions extend our understandings beyond written records and oral histories, and contribute valuable long-term context, which helps us understand the abrupt environmental changes that we are seeing in polar regions today.

My research has given me the opportunity to do fieldwork in many amazing Arctic locations, such as Finland, Norway and Alaska, and work with fabulous teams of researchers from across the world.

How does this work deliver real-world impact?

The environmental reconstructions that I develop provide long-term insights into the sensitivity and resilience of polar ecosystems to climate change. Furthermore, my research supports the development of landscape management strategies in this era of rapid climate change. For example, we have worked with reindeer herders in the Arctic to help contextualise local environmental and ecological change on millennial scales, including how vegetation and reindeer populations naturally responded to changes in climate in the past. Improving understandings of the past helps inform our responses to current and projected climate change.