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Daniel Shugar

I was born in Vancouver, grew up in Ottawa and am now living in Vancouver again. I've always loved the outdoors and spend much of my free time hiking and climbing. I began my post-secondary education studying Outdoor Recreation and Natural Resource Management at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George. During an introductory geography course however, I found I preferred that subject and transferred to Carleton University's Geography program. Midway through my BSc, I moved to southeast England and worked for a year as a journalist and photographer on a small-town newspaper. Upon returning to Canada, I worked two summers in the subarctic with Dr. Chris Burn, collecting data for my undergraduate thesis on permafrost conditions in the peatlands near Mayo, YT.

Upon graduation from Carleton in 2003, I switched gears and studied turbulent flow and sediment transport over river dunes at the University of Guelph under Dr. Ray Kostaschuk. This project brought me to the broad alluvial plain of the Paraná River in northeast Argentina and involved a variety of cutting-edge instruments including a multibeam echosounder, acoustic Doppler current profiler and laser in situ scattering transmissometer, in addition to analytical tools such as wavelets.

I am currently a doctoral student at the Centre for Natural Hazard Research (CNHR), housed in the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Working under Dr. John Clague, I am investigating the relations between catastrophic landslides and glacier dynamics in the Alaska Ranges and St. Elias Mountains of western Canada and Alaska.

Research Interests
I am especially interested in geomorphic processes in high mountain environments, and am keen to understand the impacts of recent climatic change in glacierized basins. Many slopes in the Canadian Cordillera have been destabilized and weakened due to loss of ice support during recent glacier retreat and, as a result, are likely sites of future rock avalanches. The focus of my research is on the temporal evolution of blankets of landslide-derived supraglacial debris and their impact on glacier regimen. An important aspect of my doctoral work will be the utilization of remotely sensed imagery, such as synthetic aperture radar interferometry, for the identification and quantification of large landslides in remote and rugged regions. My principal field study sites include recent rock avalanches at Frobisher and Jarvis glaciers (Fig 1) in Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park in British Columbia and Black Rapids Glacier in the Alaska Range.


View from landslide debris over Jarvis Glacier
Recent Publications
Shugar, D.H., Kostaschuk, R., Ashmore, P., Desloges, J., and Burge, L., 2007. In-situ jet testing of the erosional resistance of cohesive streambeds. Canadian J of Civil Engineering, 34:1192-1195.

Shugar, D.H., Kostaschuk, R., Best, J.L., Lane, S.N., Parsons, D. R., Orfeo, O., and Hardy, R.J. Submitted, Sedimentology. On the relationship between flow and suspended sediment transport over sand dunes, Rio Paraná, Argentina. 55pp.

Parsons, D. R., Best, J.L., Lane, S.N., Hardy, R.J., Kostaschuk, R.A., Shugar, D.H., and Orfeo, O. (2006). Morphology, flow and sediment transport over a natural 3D dune field: Rio Paraná, Argentina. In: RiverFlow 2006: International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics, Lisbon, Portugal. Ferreria, R.M.L., Alves, E.C.T.L., Leal, J.G.A.B. and Cardos, A.H. (Eds). Taylor & Francis Group, London, pp. 997-1004.

R. Kostaschuk, Shugar, D., Best, J.L., Parsons, D.R., Lane S.N., & Hardy, R.J. 2008. Suspended sediment transport over a dune. In: Marine Sand-wave and River Dune Dynamics III. University of Leeds, UK.

Shugar, D.H., and Clague, J.J. 2007. Ice-rafted landslide deposits versus ‘regular’ supraglacial debris – a problem for paleoclimatic reconstruction? In: American Geophysical Union 2007 Fall meeting, San Francisco, CA (poster).

Parsons, D.R, Shugar, D., Best, J.L., Hardy, R.J., Kostaschuk, R.A., Lane, S.N., & Orfeo, O. 2007. The links between flow structure and suspended sediment over sand dunes revealed using phase coherence wavelet analysis. In: American Geophysical Union 2007 Fall meeting, San Francisco, CA.

Shugar, D., Kostaschuk, R., Best, J., Parsons, D., Lane, S., Hardy, R., and Orfeo, O., 2007 (invited). Suspended sediment dynamics over a dune in the Rio Paraná. In: Workshop on Morphodynamic Processes in Large Lowland Rivers, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina.

Shugar, D., and Rabus, B. 2007. InSAR measurements and planned ice dynamic modeling of Black Rapids Glacier following the 2002 Denali earthquake landslides. In: Northwest Glaciologists, Portland, OR.

Shugar, D.H., Rabus, B., Flowers, G.E., and Clague, J.J. 2007. Dynamic response of a surge-type glacier to rock avalanche loading. In: GSA Cordilleran Meeting Abstracts, Bellingham, WA.

Parsons, D., Best, J.L., Lane S.N., Kostaschuk R.A., Orfeo O., Shugar, D., and Hardy, R. 2005. Morphology, flow and sediment transport over a natural dune field: Rio Paraná, Argentina. In: Proceedings, Annual Meeting British Sedimentological Research Group, Durham University, UK.

Shugar, D.H., Kostaschuk, R., Best, J.L., Lane, S.N., Parsons, D. R., Orfeo, O., and Hardy, R.J., 2005. The evolution of coherent flow structures over dunes, Paraná River, Argentina. In: 8th International Conference on Fluvial Sedimentology, Delft, The Netherlands.

Shugar, D.H., and Kostaschuk, R., 2005. The evolution of coherent flow structures over dunes in an alluvial channel, Paraná River, Argentina. In: Proceedings, Canadian Association of Geographers, University of Western Ontario, London, ON.

Kostaschuk, R.A., Shugar, D. H., Ashmore, P., Desloges, J., and Burge, L., 2005. In-situ Jet-Testing and Erosion of Cohesive Streambeds in an Urbanized Channel: Fletcher’s Creek, Ontario. In: Proceedings, Canadian Association of Geographers, University of Western Ontario, London, ON.

Shugar, D.H., 2004. Erodibility of cohesive streambeds, Fletcher’s Creek, southern Ontario. In: Proceedings, Canadian Association of Geographers, Ontario, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON.

Shugar, D.H., and Burn, C.R., 2003. Ground ice in peat, Central Yukon. In: Proceedings, Canadian Association of Geographers, Ontario, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
Download Publications
Morphology, flow and sediment transport over a natural 3D dune field: Rio Paraná, Argentina
Suspended sediment dynamics over a dune in the Rio Paraná
In situ jet-testing o fthe erosional resistance of cohesive streambeds
Education
M.Sc., Geography, 2005 University of Guelph
B.Sc. (Hons), Geography, 2003 Carleton University

For more information, please send e.mail to: dshugar@sfu.ca
or Please visit Dan's personal website here