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Research Grants: Environmental Change
Dr Helen Bennion
- Water bodies in Europe: Integrative Systems to assess Ecological status and Recovery (WISER)
European Union, Framework Programme 7: 2009-2012: £130,440
WISER addresses Theme 6 (Environment including Climate Change) of the EU FP7. It is co-ordinated by the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany and involves 25 partners from across Europe. It aims to provide guidance for the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive, by i) quantifying the effects of environmental pressures on organism groups in all water categories, ii) deriving conceptual linkages between restoration and recovery, iii) developing models to predict the recovery of organism groups to multiple measures of pressure reduction, and iv) estimating the effect of climate change on both degradation and recovery.
The UCL team will be involved in developing ecological indicators for assessment and intercalibration, namely lake macrophytes, by collating existing palaeoecological data (aquatic plant macrofossils) to establish reference conditions for macrophytes prior to enrichment. The team will also be employing palaeoecological data to assess the extent to which lake ecology is approaching or deviating from reference condition and reviewing the effect of climate change on reference conditions and ecological status of lakes.
More information can be found on the WISER website at www.wiser.eu
Dr Roger Flower
- Palaeoenvironments, landscape dynamics and cultural developments in Middle Egypt
British Academy: 2007-2010: £41,055
This three year collaborative research project with Professor FA Hassan (UCL Institute of Archaeology) draws on the richness of environmental, archaeological and historical information available in Egypt. Despite this, there has been relatively little systematic fieldwork to elucidate the relationships between the dynamics of climate change and Egyptian civilization. A pilot project which pioneered palaeo-environmental investigations in the Faiyum Oasis, a depression situated next to the Nile Valley, demonstrated the potential of the approach and provided a new and detailed sequence of environmental changes for the last 2,000 years. was also shown that local changes in settlement and land-use were influenced by changing Nile flood discharge responding to fluctuating climatic conditions at the Nile sources. The main objective of this project is a model of climatic-environment dynamics, based on stratigraphic sequences obtained from mainly terrestrial sediment cores. It is hoped to obtain a detailed sequence of Nile floods for the last 10,000 years, relate this to global climatic events, identify the role of anthropogenic influences on major climate fluctuations, and substantiate results from the Faiyum with those from Nile floodplain. - People and climate: Holocene sediment records of environmental change in Middle Egypt
Leverhulme Trust: 2003 -2006:
This three year grant investigated sediment records in Lake Qarun, Faiyum Depression using diatom, pollen and ostracod analyses.
Dr Vivienne Jones
- Influence of global teleconnections on Holocene climate in Kamchatka
NERC: 2010-2013: £440,000
This project, with Dr Steve Brooks of the Natural History Museum, will quantify Holocene climate change in Kamchatka, using chironomids, diatoms and oxygen isotopes as climate proxies, and determine climate teleconnections with the North Pacific and North Atlantic regions. The project is funding a PhD student, a part-time Post-doctoral Fellow (Dr Nadia Solovieva) at UCL, and a 3 year Fellowship for Dr Angela Self, who recently completed her PhD in UCL's Environmental Change Research Centre.
The project will provide decadal-resolution, well-dated Holocene palaeoclimate sequences from three sites in Kamchatka. Chironomid and diatom assemblages will be used as climate proxies to provide quantitative estimates of summer air temperature, continentality and duration of ice cover, and oxygen isotope analysis of chironomid chitin to determine the source of and trends in precipitation. The results will also determine the influence at the sites of westerlies from northern Eurasia, maritime influences from the North Pacific, and solar activity on climate trends at different times during the Holocene. They will also provide data to compare with model simulations of Holocene climate in the North Pacific
Project partners include Prof. Keith Bennett, Queen’s University Belfast, who has provided lake sediment cores and will coordinate dating and pollen analysis; Dr Larisa Nazarova (Alfred-Wegener-Institute, Potsdam) whose Russian chironomid data will supplement UCL's training set; and Dr Oliver Heiri (Utrecht University) for his expertise on preparation protocols for oxygen isotope analysis of chironomid chitin. - Long-range atmospheric Nitrogen deposition as a driver of ecological change in Arctic lakes
NERC: 2010-2013: £166,950
Dr Viv Jones, Dr Gavin Simpson and Dr Chris Curtis will be testing the hypothesis that long-range atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (N) is an important driver of ecological change in western Greenland.
Much of the evidence for long-term ecological change in the Arctic is from lake sediments. The composition of algal communities has changed and algal productivity has increased. Although many researchers think these changes are due to global warming, increased temperature is only one aspect of global environmental change caused by anthropogenic disruption of biogeochemical cycles. One important source of nutrients to remote lakes is atmospheric deposition of N.
We propose to test the hypothesis that N deposition is driving ecological change in the Arctic by studying lakes in SW Greenland where air temperature has not increased during the 20th century; unlike large parts of the Arctic. Our preliminary results, together with ice core data, indicate that N deposition has increased in this area since the mid-19th century.
With colleagues from Loughborough, Nottingham, and East Anglia we will be studying contemporary ecology, precipitation monitoring and palaeolimnology along a marked precipitation and N deposition gradient. The influence of N fluxes to lakes will be assessed through seasonal monitoring and experimental work and contemporary ecological experiments will be combined with measurements of N content of precipitation (rain and snow). Remarkably few measurements of N deposition exist in the Arctic and our measurements will contribute to an international focus on long-range atmospheric pollution transport. The project is also relevant to the understanding of drivers of ecological change throughout the Arctic. - CARBO-NORTH
European Commission: 2006-2010: £102,677
CARBO-North is funded by the EU Sixth Framework Programme, within the Global Change and Ecosystems sub-programme. It involves a number of international research centres in the EU, with collaborators also in Russia and the USA. It aims to quantify the carbon budget in Northern Russia across temporal and spatial scales. Its activities address rates of ecosystem change, effects on the carbon budget (radiative forcing), and global climate and policy implications (Kyoto).
Recent research on the impacts of climate change in high latitude regions has mostly assessed the 'equilibrium' response of ecosystems, for instance what is the 'potential' location of the arctic treeline or the southern limit of permafrost under conditions of global warming. However, transient responses are of much greater importance from a policy perspective, including the rates of migration of the arctic treeline, thawing of permafrost, or decay of soil organic matter, and their effects on greenhouse gas emissions and leaching.
http://www.carbonorth.net/
Dr Martin Kernan
- BioFresh
European Union, Framework Programme 7: 2010-2013: £170,455
BioFresh will build a freshwater biodiversity information platform to bring together, and make publicly available, the vast amount of information on freshwater biodiversity currently scattered among a wide range of databases. This dispersed and largely inaccessible information will therefore be made available to policy makers, scientists, planners and practitioners. BioFresh will provide spatial information on the status and trends of freshwater biodiversity and its ecosystem services. Using the data to research the past and present impacts of multiple stressors and their interactions, the project will allow improved predictions of the future responses of freshwater biodiversity to climate and socioeconomic pressures. These responses will be investigated at global, continental and local scale, focusing on Europe. BioFresh aims to provide a scientific foundation for incorporating freshwater biodiversity into water policy and international environmental agreements (i.e. Ramsar Convention, Convention on Biological Diversity), and into EU directives such as Natura 2000. The project’s will also aim to strengthen public awareness about the status and the importance of freshwater biodiversity for environmental and human well-being. - REFRESH
European Union, Framework Programme 7: 2010-2013: £613,000
Understanding how freshwater ecosystems will respond to future climate change is essential for the development of policies and implementation strategies to protect aquatic and riparian ecosystems. The future status of freshwater ecosystems is also dependent on changes in land-use, pollution loading and water demand. The measures that need to be taken to restore freshwater ecosystems to good ecological health or to sustain priority species need to be designed either to adapt to future climate change or to mitigate the effects of climate change. REFRESH is concerned with generating the scientific understanding that enables such measures to be implemented successfully. The key objective of the project is to develop a system that will enable water managers to design cost-effective restoration programmes at local and catchment scales. This will account for the expected future impacts of climate and land-use change in the context of the Water Framework and Habitats Directives. At its centre is a process-based evaluation of the adaptive measures that might be taken at different scales to minimise the adverse consequences of climate change on freshwater quantity, quality and biodiversity. The focus is on three principal climate-related and interacting pressures; i) increasing temperature; ii) changes in water levels and flow regimes; and ii) excess nutrients. We focus primarily on lowland systems as those often pose the most difficult problems in meeting both the requirements of the WFD and Habitats Directive. - Euro-limpacs
European Union, Framework Programme 6: 2004-2009: £997,000
Natural ecosystems, already under stress from land-use change and pollution, now face additional pressures from rapid climate change. These pose serious threats to human society, since the availability and quality of freshwater determines the functioning of every ecosystem, not least those on which people depend. Predicting and managing the ecological consequences of global change requires expertise, new methods and comprehensive new approaches.
In general terms, the main achievements of Euro-limpacs were:
i) To increase understanding of how climate change both directly and through interaction with other drivers (land-use change, nutrient loading, acid deposition, toxic pollution) has impacted and will impact on structure and functioning of European freshwater ecosystems;
ii) To set out the implications for the future management of European freshwaters, and to incorporate these into the development of management tools;
iii) To disseminate the information widely to users, stakeholders and the wider public..
http://www.eurolimpacs.ucl.ac.uk/oldsite/publicarea/partnerprofile.php?partnerid=14
Dr Neil Rose
- OPAL
The Big Lottery Fund. 2007-2012: £260,515
OPAL (Open Air Laboratories) is designed to encourage people of all ages and abilities, and from all backgrounds, to get back in touch with nature. The project also aims to generate valuable scientific data concerning the state of our environment through original research and public participation in five national surveys.
The aims of the OPAL Water projects are to stimulate interest in the aquatic environment in all sectors of the community and to provide people with the tools to observe changes in the water quality of local water body through the identification of key plants and animals. Two OPAL Water Projects are taking place across England: The Aquatic Biomonitoring Project and the OPAL Water Centre. We are also running a National Water Survey in 2010 in which we hope many people will get involved to help us find out more about ponds, pools and lakes across the country. - Aquatic Biomonitoring
We have established a monitoring programme at a lake or pond in each of nine regions across England. We are visiting each site every three months to undertake a range of physical measurements (water clarity, temperature, conductivity, oxygen profiles), samples for chemical analysis (major ions, nutrients) and biological groups (zooplankton, phytoplankton, diatoms). We are also undertaking annual surveys of aquatic plants and invertebrates to assess inter-annual changes. We also aim to determine the history of changes at each site through the use of the sediment record. This will help people to appreciate the temporal aspects of water quality (i.e. how quickly water quality and ecology can degrade and improve) as well as putting contemporary measurements into an historical context - The OPAL Water Centre
The Big Lottery 2007-2012: £439,491
There is increasing evidence for high levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and metals in the fish and sediments of UK lakes, and trace metal and POPs-driven toxicity to freshwater species even in remote locations. In urban areas such impacts may be exacerbated by run-off from paved catchments. This project aims to identify the scale of contamination from trace metals (mercury, lead, cadmium, copper, nickel and zinc) and POPs (PAHs, PCBs and PBDEs) in various ecological compartments (water, biota, sediments) in a waterbody from each of the nine regions and assess their impact on aquatic ecotoxicity.
OPAL Water Survey
The OPAL Water Survey will be launched in spring 2010. It will distribute 40,000 packs to allow people of all ages to help find out more about their local ponds and pools across England. Anyone can take part and can obtain a pack by contacting the OPAL Water Centre (opalwatercentre@geog.ucl.ac.uk).
The pack will include a range of activities including sampling aquatic invertebrates; making observations about the different animals and plants that live in the pond; and making simple chemical and physical measurements. All the information we obtain from monitoring and from the National Water survey can be viewed through the OPAL website (www.OPALexplorenature.org)
Profesor Chronis Tzedakis
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Climate instability during the Last Interglacia”
NERC: 2009-2010: £169,837
Total award £257,143: PI: P.C. Tzedakis; Co-I: L.C. Skinner, Cambridge.
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