Current Positions
Professor Michael Murray-Hudson is an Associate Professor of Wetland Ecology, and Coordinator of Environmental Monitoring Unit at the Okavango Research Institute, University of Botswana.
Recent Activities
Ongoing: Hydroecology of Delta Floodplains: Floodplain plant species distribution modelling for evaluating effects of hydrological change. Expert Input to The Nature Conservancy Value Proposition for Okavango River Basin Commission (OKACOM) Endowment Fund for transboundary river basin management. Team Leader of multi-university technical consortium for Okavango River Basin Commission (OKACOM): Sediment Assessment Cubango-Okavango River Basin. Carbon budgets for the Okavango Delta.
2014-19: Evaluating the Effects of Elevated Nutrient Concentrations on Delta Ecosystems – ex- and in-situ experiments with enrichment to simulate agricultural runoff and evaluate effects on Cyperus papyrus growth and microbial rhizosphere populations;
2017: Worked with Centre for Applied Research on Water Allocation Strategy, Cubango-Okavango River Basin – Phases 1 and 2. Report to Okavango River Basin Commission (OKACOM) towards implementing the Strategic Action Plan for the CORB.
Research Foci
Modelling interactions between wetland plants and hydrology for assessing impacts of anthropogenic and climate-driven change. Evaluating impacts of changes in water-borne nutrients on wetland plants and biogeochemistry. Carbon cycling in wetlands. Sustainability science and wetland ecosystem services. Long-term monitoring indices of wetland health.
Recent Publications
Helfter, C., Gondwe, M., Murray-Hudson, M., Makati, A., Lunt, M. F., Palmer, P. I., & Skiba, U. (2022). Phenology is the dominant control of methane emissions in a tropical non-forested wetland. Nature Communications, 13(1), 133. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-27786-4.
Gondwe, M. J., Helfter, C., Murray-Hudson, M., Levy, P. E., Mosimanyana, E., Makati, A., . . . Skiba, U. M. (2021). Methane flux measurements along a floodplain soil moisture gradient in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 379.
Park, S., Jeong, J., Baker, T. J., Wolski, P., Abitew, T. A., Murray-Hudson, M., . . . Andrade, C. (2021). Spatio-temporal variation of water resource and fluxes in the Okavango basin. Paper presented at the AGU Fall Meeting 2021.
Chan, K. M. A., Boyd, D. R., Gould, R. K., Jetzkowitz, J., Liu, J., Muraca, B., Murray-Hudson, M. . . (+32 additional authors) Brondízio, E. S. (2020). Levers and leverage points for pathways to sustainability. People and Nature, 00, 1-25. doi:10.1002/pan3.10124.
Edwards, T. M., I. J. Mosie, B. C. Moore, G. Lobjoit, K. Schiavone, R. E. Bachman and M. Murray-Hudson (2020). "Low oxygen: A (tough) way of life for Okavango fishes." PLOS ONE 15(7): e0235667
