Water is our most precious natural resource and critical to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I am a hydrologist, and my research interests lie in the field of environmental monitoring and modelling with a particular interest in the application of novel technologies and analysis approaches. My work focuses on understanding how our freshwater environments function and how they respond to different drivers of change (land-use, climatic) and pressures (pollution, abstraction). I am an associate member of the Dundee UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science.

My interdisciplinary research is interested in providing critical understanding about how our freshwater environments and their associated ecosystems, can be managed to deliver the many, and sometimes conflicting, ecosystem services and functions needed by society.

Pollution is a significant threat to our freshwater environments. My research is focused on understanding and quantifying pollution risk and impacts, considering known and emergent pollutants and how pollution can be prevented and mitigated. I am also interested to understand the vulnerabilities of the Scottish freshwater resources to hydrological extremes (droughts/floods) and how these events impact freshwater quality, ecosystem function, and service provision (drinking water/key industries). I am interested in topics such as drinking water security, and how this links to the One Health agenda. My historic research has also looked at the role of in situ high-frequency hydrochemical monitoring, in developing new understanding of catchment biogeochemical processing and the role of instream processes. I am also interested in how the new process understanding gained from this work, can be used to inform and improve the development and implementation of effective water quality legislation. 

I am interested in collaborations and/or postgraduate projects relating, but not limited, to the following topics:

• Controls on freshwater quality
• Role of legislation in addressing freshwater pollution
• Emergent contaminants within the freshwater environment
• Drinking water security
• Influence of drought on freshwater ecosystems
• Understanding climate driven land-use change impacts on freshwater ecosystems
• Public communication on sustainable water use and water scarcity

Current postgraduate students:

• Sayali Pawar: PhD – Future-proofing Scotland's water security: delivering safe and resilient water supplies. Hydronations Scholarship Programme - Completed November 2024; 1^st Supervisor (at Dundee)
• Esther Mabedi: PhD - Groundwater contamination risks from pit latrines in different hydrogeological settings. University of Dundee Africa Initiative. Submission due 2028; 2^nd Supervisor
• Sophie Blenkinsopp: PhD – Barley growing systems towards the net zero economy. BARIToNE Scholarship Programme Submission due 2028; 2^nd Supervisor
• Mitia Aranda: PhD - An inclusive and sustainable blue space infrastructure for people with disabilities post-Covid-19 pandemic. Hydronations Scholarship Programme – Submission due 2027; 2^nd Supervisor

Research Projects:

• Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW) - Review of monitoring approaches to deliver healthy ecosystems for Scotland's protected fresh waters and wetlands – PI – 2024-2025
• CREW – Call Down Project: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water supplies: a review of source, pathway and fate for selected compounds – Co-I – 2024
• CREW – Climate Crisis: Informing Scotland's Actionable Mitigation and Adaption Response to Water Scarcity – PI – 2023-2024
• CREW – Developing risk assessment approaches for watch list parameters under the recast Drinking Water Directive – Co-I – 2023-2024
• Hydro Nation Chair Catalysts Fund – What lies beneath? Evaluating the risk associated with reservoir water quality under a changing climate to futureproof Scotland’s drinking water security – PI –  Collaborative project with University of Bristol, Loughborough University & Keele University, James Hutton Institute and Scottish Water – 2023-2024
• Hydro Nation Chair Catalysts Fund – The Value of Water – PI –  Collaborative project with University of Stirling, Scottish Water, SEPA and Veolia - 2023
• CREW – Scoping the development of a model to estimate phosphorus loads to water from septic tanks (including a review of nitrogen and faecal indicator organisms) - Co-I - Collaborative project with James Hutton Institute - 2020-2021
• Scottish Funding Council - Global Challenges Research Fund ( SFC-GCRF) – Tackling water security to improve health in rural Malawi – Co-I – Collaborative project with School of Dentistry and local partners in Malawi – 2020-2022
• Scottish Government Funded – Hydro Nation Ganga River Health – Co-I – Consortium project being led by UoD with partners from across the UK (JHI, University of Southampton), and India (Kanpur IIT, WWF) - 2017- 2018
• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) – Developing more effective models for managing water from the local to the national scale from a risk and pollution perspective (LM0308) – PDRA – Consortium project led by CEH with University of Reading, Atkins, ADAS and JHI - 2014-2016
• DEFRA – Understanding the implications of climate change on the quality condition of water environment in the UK (WT1540) – PDRA – 2014
• Natural Environment Research Council Proposal (NERC) - The Multi-Scale Response of Water Quality, Biodiversity and C Sequestration to Coupled Macronutrient Cycling from Source to Sea (NE/J011967/1) – PDRA – Consortium project led by University of Reading, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and Bangor University – 2012-2016
• European Union Seventh Framework Programme - REFRESH - Adaptive Strategies to Mitigate the Impacts of Climate Change on European Freshwater Ecosystems (244121) – PDRA – Consortium project led by UCL - 2010-2014
• EPSRC Novel technologies for in situ environmental monitoring: linking sensor development to improved pollutant transport models - PhD Student - 2009-2012  

Role: Programme lead for Geography and Environmental Science
Module lead: 

• GE32021 - Data-driven Geography: Statistics in R
• EV21001 - Management and Monitoring
• EV22002 - Mechanisms and Measurements 
•  

Module Contributor: 

• EV11001 - The Physical Environment
• EV12002 - Environments for Life
• GE22003 - Geography Field Course (UK)
• GE31019 - Research Methods in Human Geography 
• GE31004 - Hydrology and Water Resources
• GE41007 - Advance Hydrology and Water Resources
• GE52024 - Applied GIS and Geospatial Data Analysis
• GE52033 - Climate Change: Processes and Impacts