Water Research: Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Meeting to explore shared interests in research into water: October 27th 2006
Academics and their Research Interests
Name
Professor Paul
Bates
Professor of
Hydrology
Department
School of
Geographical
Sciences
My research centers on developing numerical
models to better understand a wide range of flow
and transport problems in complex, real
environments. At present, particular areas of
interest include river floodplains, terrestrial
catchments and subglacial lake systems. The
approach adopted is based on development of
numerical Computational Fluid Dynamics, and their
parameterization, validation and uncertainty
analysis. I am particularly interested in the use of
remotely sensed data for model building and
analysis.
School of
Chemistry
Synthetic supramolecular chemistry - synthesis
and study of novel molecules with binding,
associative, catalytic or other specific properties.
Specific research areas: Synthetic receptors for
carbohydrates employing non-covalent
interactions. Synthetic receptors for inorganic
anions. Enantioselective recognition by steroidal
podands. Design/discovery of organic molecular
catalysts. Design and synthesis of novel ligands for
DNA bases and base-pairs. Synthesis and
investigation of novel amphiphiles. The application
of combinatorial methodology to problems in
supramolecular chemistry.
School of
Chemistry
My major water-related interests include: (i) the
movement of organic matter in soils in relation to
carbon cycling and soil ecosystem processes; (ii)
the transport of organic matter from river and lake
catchments in relation the potential impacts on the
aquatic environment, and (iii) the use of lake
sediments as archives of chemical signals of past
environments. These are very much new areas of
interest which are evolving out of our on-going
biogeochemical research.
Professor Tony
Davis
Professor of
Supramolecular
Chemistry
Professor
Richard
Evershed
Research Interests
Professor of
Biogeochemistry
Dr Alan Feest
Engineering
Senior Lecturer in Management
Continuing
Group
Education
(1) I am the Course Director for the only post
graduate course in the University which is centred
on water and the issues surrounding water: the
MSc Water and Environmental Management.
Students for this course come largely from four
sources: Water Companies in the UK; the
Environment Agency; Consultancies and finally
foreign students. The course is a water-related
career-centred course of very high quality and
good recruitment.
Water Research: Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Meeting to explore shared interests in research into water: October 27th 2006
Name
Department
Research Interests
(2) One element of my biodiversity research has
led me to collaborate with Wessex Water to
investigate whether their RIVPACS data will allow
the biodiversity quality of waters to be calculated
such that values for assessing "good ecological
status" can be established as is required by the
Water Framework Directive. If we are successful in
this it will have an international impact. I am liaising
with UKTAG over this aspect of research.
Dr Mhairi
Gibson
Lecturer in
Biological
Anthropology
Department of
Archaeology &
Anthropology
Dr Stephen
Gundry
Engineering
Management
Senior Lecturer in
Group
Enterprise &
Entrepreneurship
Dr Dawei Han
Department of
The demographic impact of labour-saving
development technologies.
I’m interested in the population and health issues
in the developing world. Funded by the ESRC &
Wellcome Trust, my research has focused on the
unforeseen demographic consequences of a
labour-saving water supply scheme on a rural
agricultural district in Southern Ethiopia. In the
absence of family planning, a reduction in women’s
water-carrying workloads has increased fertility.
Higher birth rates combined with improved child
survivorship has resulted in larger family sizes, and
increases in childhood malnutrition.
Stephen Gundry is a Senior Lecturer in
Engineering Management and is a member of the
faculty's Water and Environmental Management
Research Centre. His research interests are
related to drinking water quality and child health in
developing countries, particularly rural areas of
Africa. He was coordinator of an EU-funded
research project 'AQUAPOL' that looked at the
policy implications of contamination of water
between source and point of use (see
www.bristol.ac.uk/aquapol). This project provided
the background for a new project 'AQUATEST' - a
preparatory study for a low cost water test for
developing countries. This project is again funded
by the EU, under the Global Change and
Ecosystems theme of Framework 6. Participants
include WHO, Oxfam, Universities of
Southampton, North Carolina and Cape Town, the
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and several
research labs / commercial companies. The
principal deliverable, in mid-2007, will be a full
proposal to fund the R&D of the test device and
associated management systems. More details at:
www.aquatest-research.org.
Dr. Dawei Han is currently participating in projects
Water Research: Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Meeting to explore shared interests in research into water: October 27th 2006
Name
Lecturer in Civil
Engineering
Department
Civil Engineering investigating weather radar rainfall, flood
forecasting, hydroinformatics, and weather
ensemble modelling. In the future, I would be
interested in applying hydroinformatics in
ecohydrology under the human and natural
influences.
Dr Andrew Hogg
School of
Senior Lecturer in
Mathematics
Applied
Mathematics
Professor
Kenneth
Ogugua Iwugo
Visiting
Fellow/Senior
Advisor
Research Interests
Fluid mechanics, with particular emphasis on twophase flows ranging from dilute suspensions to
granular flows.
Recent projects include: (1) the dynamics of
granular avalanches and their interaction with solid
obstacles; (2) the density driven intrusion of
suspensions of particles through flowing
environments; (3) the propagation and arrest of
materials with a yield stress; (4) the behaviour of
flowing fluidised materials, and (5) the transport of
sand by swash on a sloping beach.
Research methods include mathematical modelling
and analysis, numerical computation and
laboratory experimentation.
(1) Governance and Capacity Building Issues in
the context of the water, sanitation and urban slum
upgrading targets (environmental sustainability
Goal) of the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) and the World Bank
Poverty Reduction Strategy Processes – PRSP;
Department of
(2) Sustainable Water Management Systems and
Civil
Diffuse Pollution Management, and (3) Teaching
Engineering/Wat
and Learning Techniques and Development in
er &
Water and Environment Education.
Environmental
Current Areas of Expertise in Advisory and
Management &
Specialist Consultancy Work: (1) Water Quality
International
and Waste Management; (2) Appropriate Water
Development
Supply & Sanitation in Developing Countries; (3)
Institutional Development & Capacity Building; (4)
Process, Project and Programme Evaluation (with
EIA and SEA); (5) Environmental Education &
Communication, and (6) Development and
Governance Studies.
(1) Measurement and prediction of water
movement within and from foods during
Food
Mr Steve James
refrigeration, cooking and surface pasteurisation
Refrigeration &
operations. (Especially interested in prediction and
Process
Director of
control of water activity at surface during rapid
Engineering
FRPERC
heating.); (2) Humidification of retail display
Research Centre
cabinets; (3) Reducing ice build up on refrigeration
coils; (4) Investigating control of water flow and
Water Research: Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Meeting to explore shared interests in research into water: October 27th 2006
Name
Department
Research Interests
recirculating/filtering water during scalding and
cleaning of pig and poultry carcasses, and (5)
Developing rapid E.coli tests for water quality in
developing world.
(1) Reservoir Sedimentation Control - Reservoir
sedimentation is a worldwide problem and our
research has developed a novel set of hydraulic
structures to allow sediment bypassing of dams,
Dr John
and (2) Cutting the cost of coastal structures - We
Loveless
Department of
are developing ideas for reducing the cost of
Civil Engineering construction in the marine environment. Using a
Senior Lecturer in
new kind of armour unit it should be possible make
Civil Engineering
significant savings to the construction of
breakwaters and platforms for the capture of tide,
wave, wind and solar energy at the coast and in
estuaries.
Dr Katerina
Michaelides
Lecturer in
Physical
Geography
School of
Geographical
Sciences
(1) Flow pathways and hydrological connectivity in
catchments; (2) Rainfall-runoff modelling of
catchments, uncertainty relating to spatial patterns
using geostatistics approach; (3) Dryland
hydrological and geomorphological processes; (4)
Soil-erosional processes; experimental work on
sediment transport and deposition using chemical
tracers; field and experimental work on water- and
erosion-driven nutrient dynamics in dryland and
temperate-agricultural landscapes, and (5)
Manager of TRACE (Test Rig for Advancing
Connectivity Experiments) laboratory, which is
located in Fenswood Farm, Long Ashton.
School of Law
Current and future research plans: to explore
emerging governance patterns around key global
public goods such as water, health and education.
Do these patterns vary by sector, or are
commonalities emerging across sectors such that
one could speak of an emerging 'global welfare
state'? Given the absence (and undesirability) of
global government, to what extent and in what
ways is law coordinating the governance of global
public goods? What is the relative importance, in
different sectors, of complex layers of regulation at
multiple levels of governance, of fundamental
rights claims which ordinary people make to
health, education and water as basic entitlements,
and of disputes that cross national borders?
School of
Chemistry
My research focuses on biogeochemical cycles in
marine environments, ranging from coastal
ecosystems to deep sea sediments. These are
Professor
Bronwen
Morgan
Professor of
Socio Legal
Studies
Dr Richard
Pancost
Water Research: Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Meeting to explore shared interests in research into water: October 27th 2006
Name
Department
Reader in
Biogeochemistry
investigated using a range of molecular-based
biomarker and isotopic approaches, allowing
microorganisms (including Bacteria, Archaea and
microalgae) in different systems to be
characterised and their ecology to be elucidated.
Department of
Earth Sciences
(1) As Leader of the Nature QUEST programme, I
am promoting research on the vulnerability of
human activities to climate change. My own group
has developed a methodology to represent
probabilistic outcomes from climate and biosphere
models. We have shown sharply increasing
probabilities of water supply reductions in e.g.
southern Africa, China and the eastern USA, and
(2) As an ecosystem modeler, I am working on
how freshwater runoff is affected by plant
physiology changes brought about by changes in
CO2 and climate.
Department of
Earth Sciences
Vala Ragnarsdottir has a PhD in aqueous
geochemistry and over 25 years of experience in
working on environmental issues, including fate
and transport of pollutants in soil and groundwater.
At the moment she has two PhD students that are
working on using photocatalytic reactions of
mineral surfaces for water purification. More
recently she has started working on soil related
issues - focusing on the rate of soil formation, soil
erosion prevention and the whole life cycle of soils.
This she has extended into linking soil
geochemistry and health and future work will link
the ecologic services of soils with the economic
value of natural resources.
Department of
Mechanical
Engineering
(1) Non-mechanical refrigeration systems: use of
non-mechanical compressors (based on
adsorption and use of zeolite + methanol), and (2)
Novel Building materials: Until now, have been
looking at thermal and hygric properties of
traditional building materials. Hope to look at the
development of novel materials for construction
using recyclable materials.
Future interests: (1) Work done with 3rd year
project on water filter’s systems for un-developed
countries, and (2) Want to study the development
of ‘locally made’ filters by local people at low cost
and with very little manufacturing skills or costs,
using local knowledge.
Professor Colin
Prentice
Professor of
Earth System
Science
Professor Vala
Ragnarsdottir
Professor of
Environmental
Sustainability
Dr Hind SaidaniScott
Lecturer in
Mechanical
Engineering
Research Interests
Professor David Department of
M. Sherman
Earth Sciences
We are doing research in aqueous geochemistry
and one of our primary focus areas is the
Water Research: Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Meeting to explore shared interests in research into water: October 27th 2006
Name
Department
understanding of heavy metal/radionuclide
pollution in groundwater. Currently, I have three
NERC projects related to ground and surface
water chemistry: (1) Geochemistry of Arsenic
(motivated by the extensive groundwater problem
in Bangladesh); (2) Geochemistry of Uranium in
Soils (motivated by the use of depleted uranium
munitions in recent conflict zones), and (3)
Electronic structures of Fe-Mn (hydr)oxides and
their aquatic reactivity (understanding
photochemical processes/sorption in natural
waters).
Our focus is on developing a molecular (atomistic)
understanding of geochemical processes,
particularly those involving the the sorption of
dissolved species by "nanocrystalline" (= colloidal)
Fe-Mn (hydr)oxides and clay minerals. This
fundamental science could readily be applied to
cross-disciplinary projects such as developing new
water-treatment technologies that could be used in
developing countries and understanding the fate of
micronutrients/pollutants in complex aquatic
ecosystems.
Professor of
Geochemistry
Professor Peter
Smart
Professor of
Physical
Geography
School of
Geographical
Sciences
and
Dr Fiona
Whitaker
Senior Lecturer in
Earth Sciences
Research Interests
Department of
Earth Sciences
The focus of our research is on groundwater
circulation in carbonate rocks in relation to
resource management and carbonate diagenesis.
Our approach ranges from direct field observation
and instrumentation of groundwater circulation and
geochemical processes to numerical modelling of
variable density groundwater flow and reaction
transport modelling. Recent projects include: (1)
Numerical modelling of variable density and
temperature groundwater circulation in carbonate
platforms in relation to reflux and geothermal
drives; (2) Coupled reaction transport modelling of
dolomitisation and other diagenetic processes in
carbonate platforms; (3) Water tracing using
fluorescent dyes to determine direction and rate of
groundwater circulation in limestone areas, most
recently near Cornelly and Broadfield Down near
Bristol; (4) Field investigation of the hydrology and
biogeochemistry of density stratified groundwater
circulation, Caribbean coast, Yucatan Peninsula,
Mexico; (5) Catchment scale modelling of the
effects of land use on groundwater quality for
springs in the Mendip Hills; (6) Scale effects and
aquifer characterisation of carbonate aquifers, and
(7) Quarry dewatering, impact assessment,
Water Research: Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Meeting to explore shared interests in research into water: October 27th 2006
Name
Department
Research Interests
monitoring and mitigation (NERC LINK award and
advise to Environment Agency for new advisory
document).
Funding sources include oil majors (ExxonMobil,
Shell, Connoco Phillips and Chevron), the
Environment Agency, UK aggregate companies
(Aggregate Industries, Foster Yeoman, Hanson
and Tarmac), UK Consulting Companies (ESI,
Hydrotechnica, Hyder), Bristol Water and NERC.
Dr James Stuart
Department of
Senior Clinical
Social Medicine
Lecturer in Social
Medicine
Dr Peter Talling
Lecturer in
Geology
Professor Colin
Taylor
Professor of
Earthquake
Engineering
Professor
Martyn Tranter
Professor of
Physical
Geography
Department of
Earth Sciences
My background is as a consultant epidemiologist in
infectious disease for the Public Health Laboratory
Service and the Health Protection Agency for the
last 10 years. I have an honorary contract with the
Department of Social Medicine, University of
Bristol. My research related to water and infection
has involved investigation of outbreaks of water
borne disease (swimming pools and other
recreational water) and of risk factors, including
drinking water, for Giardia and Cryptosporidiium.
I am interested in flows of sediment and water, and
the settling behaviour of cohesive and noncohesive sediment in water. We have recently
conducted a number of simple laboratory
experiments to understand both static settling and
settling from a shear flow. Most previous work has
aimed to understand submarine sediment laden
flows, but the work is also relevant for flows in
reservoirs.
My water related interests, and those of the
earthquake engineering research centre, are
Department of
mainly related to the seismic performance of dams
Civil Engineering and associated structures, including management
of natural hazard impacts on complete dam/water
supply systems.
School of
Geographical
Sciences
(1) Water quality in cold regions; (2) Nutrient
cycling in cold regions; (3) Subglacial lake
biogeochemistry; (4) Low level analytical
techniques for inorganic major ions and nutrients;
(5) Low level determination of dissolved organic
carbon (DOC) and nutrients (DON and DOP), and
(6) Stable isotopes and biogeochemical processes.
Current Areas of Expertise in Advisory and
Specialist Consultancy Work: (1) Biogeochemical
processes in cold regions.