Environmental Dynamics Research Group

‘FirEUrisk - a holistic approach for risk-wise adaptation of the wildfire management in the EU to global changes’ (2021-2025). This €10 Mill. EU Horizon 2020 project led by aims to deliver a paradigm shift in wildfire management in Europe, developing appropriate solutions and services, and gaining knowledge to address the increasing challenges linked to wildfires in Europe. It is carried out in collaboration with 39 partners from 19 countries. Amongst the contributions of the ED group are developing risk assessment and mitigation tools for post-fire erosion and water contamination at European level.

‘Toward a UK fire danger rating system: Understanding fuels, fire behaviour and impacts’ (2020-2024). This project aims to establish and test the scientific underpinning and key components required to build an effective, tailored UK fire danger rating system for use in establishing the likelihood and impact of current and future fire regimes. It is funded via a NERC Highlight Topic Grant in collaboration with Manchester University (lead), London School of Economics, Birmingham-, Exeter- and Portsmouth Universities.

‘Constraints on the tempo and magnitude of explosive arc volcanism: facilitating long-term ash fall hazard assessments’ (2019-2023). UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to Paul Albert, aiming to reconstruct comprehensive long-term records of explosive volcanism for productive arc volcanoes. Partners are the Geological Survey of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV; Italy) and the University of Oxford.

‘Advancing 3D Fuel Mapping for Wildfire Behaviour and Risk Mitigation Modelling’ (2019-2022). In this project ED group members will improve understanding and mitigation of wildland fire by advancing wildfire behaviour model capabilities. Through the development of new automated methods (algorithms) it will implement real 3D fuel data into physics-based wildfire behaviour models. These models are the most advanced in terms of their ability to forecast fire behavior and the work aims to provide a step-change in physical fire modelling capabilities. This project is funded by a NERC New Investigator grant in collaboration with the US Forest Service and Natural Resources Wales.

‘Wildfire impacts on carbon dynamics in vulnerable peatlands’ (2019-2022). In this Royal Society UK-China cost share programme grant between ED group members and researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences we aim to initiate the production of much needed knowledge on the effects of wildfire history (frequency and severity) on peatland carbon pools by quantifying pyrogenic carbon (a long-lived by product of wildfires) in a range of Chinese and UK peatlands.

‘Impacts of the extreme 2018 forest fires and post-fire forest management on carbon pools and climate forcing’ (2019-2022). This project focuses on the largest wildfire that occurred in the extreme 2018 wildfire season in Sweden. It examines how fire severity and forest management influence carbon pools and carbon emissions in a common type of managed European boreal forest. It is funded by the Swedish Research Council and carried out jointly with Lund University, Sweden.

FIRElinks - ‘Fire in the Earth System: Science & Society’ (2018-22). This programme, co-lead by the ED group, is developing an EU-spanning network of scientists and practitioners involved in wildfire research and land management. It connects communities from different scientific and geographic backgrounds to enable the sharing of different experiences and advancing approaches to fire research. It brings together 132 scientists and practitioners from 38 countries and is funded by the H2020 EU COST-Action programme.

‘Fire and water: predicting and mitigating water pollution risk from wildfire ash’ (2018-2022). This project led by the ED group involves (i) obtaining critical fundamental knowledge on wildfire ash transport processes and its contamination potential and, using this knowledge for (b) developing the first end-user probabilistic model that allows predicting ash delivery and associated water contamination risk to the hydrological network. This project is funded by NERC and carried out in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, the US Forest Service and industry partners in the UK and Australia. Some of its outcomes are described here.

‘Realising the natural capital of Welsh peatlands’ (2018-2020). This Welsh Government funded project aims to improve the condition and management, appreciation and understanding of Wales’ peatlands through the delivery of practical restoration works, promoting best peatland management practice, increasing the awareness and enjoyment of Welsh peatlands, and improving the evidence base on Welsh peatlands. It is led by Snowdonia National Park Authority, in partnership with Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, IUCN UK Peatland Programme, Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust, National Trust, Natural Resources Wales, and Swansea University.

‘UK climate during the common era’ (2017-2020) This NERC funded project led by the ED group in collaboration with Oxford University develops a 2000 year numerically verifiable reconstructions of UK summer temperature and precipitation, with defined confidence intervals. It will deliver a quantitative reference climatology that will mark a step-change in UK palaeoclimatology, moving from reliance upon seminal, but outdated research, to a new numerical and tightly constrained understanding of past climate.

Academic staff: Paul Albert (lead), Stuart Cairns, Siwan Davies, Stefan Doerr, Nicholas Felstead, Kath Ficken, Mary Gagen, Neil Loader, Rhian Meara, Danny McCarroll, Katie Preece, Iain Robertson, Cristina Santin (Honorary Assoc. Prof.), Emilia Urbanek, Rory Walsh

Postdoctoral Researchers: Hannah Buckland, Carlos Cabo, Darren Davies, Carmen Sanchez-Garcia, Roger Lew, Jonay Neris, Tadas Nikonovas, Glen Reynolds  MBE, José Roce, Emma Watts

Postgraduate students: Molly Flynn, Priya Minhas, Carys Thomas

Technicians: Leif Forrest, Gwydion Jones, Jonathan Hughes, Ona Kudarauskaite

MetOffice, Natural Resources Wales, Forest Research, Forestry Commission England, United Utilities, Welsh Water, UK Fire and Rescue Services, NOAA, US Forest Service, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Royal Meteorological Society, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, South African National Parks, National Academy of Sciences of Republic of Armenia, SE Asia Rainforest Research Partnership, Sime Darby Foundation, Water New South Wales.

• Dedicated Isotope-ratio Mass-Spectrometry laboratory
• Stable isotope dendrochronology
• Specialized facilitates for batch-processing tree ring samples for stable isotope analysis
• Rock, sediment and ice sample preparation facilities for tephra analysis
• Microscopy suite for tephra, pollen, macrofossils and micromorphology
• Climate simulation chamber
• Goniometer for contact angle determination (hydrophobicity assessments)
• Laser particle size analyser with wet and dry powder modules
• Soil CO2 flux analyser with multiplexer
• Laboratory and field rainfall simulation facility
• Laboratory and field portable X-ray fluorescence elemental analysers
• Suite of field equipment to monitor temperatures inside wildfires
• Secure laboratories and storage facilities for soils and sediments imported worldwide under our import license
• Soil moisture monitoring and release curve meters
• Long-term instrumented catchments and meteorological stations in the UK, Portugal, Sweden, Australia, Malaysian Borneo and the USA

We collaborate widely both nationally and internationally with academic, public, private, and third-sector organizations, industry and government agencies, and a keen to widen our collaborative network.

Analysis of wildfire charcoal from Canada, Europe and South Africa revealed that these charcoals contain environmentally persistent free radicals. These could pose a hazard because these radicals can generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are harmful.

New tools co-developed by researchers and industry help to keep Sydney’s drinking water clean after wildfires followed by heavy rainfall threaten water supply.

Wildfire activity is on the rise in some regions causing considerable social and environmental impacts, but research reveals that reductions in fire activity in other parts of the world mean that we are not seeing an overall increase in global area burned.

A new approach using the stable isotope ratios in tree rings in timber allowed dating one of the oldest mediaeval houses in Wales, recently restored by the Landmark Trust.

• Postgraduate Opportunities
• MSc Environmental Dynamics and Climate Change
• MSc Geographic Information and Climate Change

Dr Paul Albert

Albert PG, McLean D, Buckland HM, Suzuki T, Jones G, Staff, RA, Vineberg S, Kitaba I, Yamada K, Moriwaki H, Ishimura D, Ikehara K, Manning CJ, SG14 Project Members, Nakagawa T, Smith, VC (2024). Cryptotephra preserved in Lake Suigetsu (SG14 core) reveals the eruption timing and distribution of ash fall from Japanese volcanoes during the Late-glacial to Early Holocene. Quaternary Science Reviews 324, 108376.  

Albert PG, Giaccio B, Isaia R, Costa A, Niespolo EM, Nomade S, Pereira A, Renne PR, Hinchliffe A, Mark DF, Brown RJ, Smith VC (2019) Evidence for a large-magnitude eruption from Campi Flegrei caldera (Italy) at 29 ka. Geology 47, 595-599.

Abbott P, Griggs A, Bourne, A, Chapman MR, Davies SM (2018) Tracing marine cryptotephras in the North Atlantic during the last glacial period: Improving the North Atlantic marine tephrostratigraphic framework. Quaternary Science Reviews 189, 169–186.

Cairns S, Meza-Rojas D, Holliman PJ, Robertson I (2024). Interactions Between Biochar and Nano(Micro)Plastics in the Remediation of Aqueous Media. International Journal of Environmental Research, 18(5), 87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41742-024-00635-0

Cairns S, Robertson I, Holliman P, Street-Perrott A (2022). Treatments of wood ash amended biochar to reduce nutrient leaching and immobilise lead, copper, zinc and cadmium in aqueous solution: column experiments. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, 8(6), 1277–1286. https://doi.org/10.1039/D1EW00962A

Davies D, Mills CM, McCarroll D, Loader N (2024) The precise and accurate dating of medieval bridge remains at Ancrum, Scottish Borders, using stable isotope dendrochronology. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 59, 104753

Davies SM, Albert PG, Bourne AJ, Owen S, Svensson A, Bolton MSM, Cook E, Jensen BJL, Jones G, Pomomareva VV, Suzuki T (2024) Exploiting the Greenland volcanic ash repository to date caldera-forming eruptions and widespread isochrons during the Holocene, Quaternary Science Reviews 334, 108707

Doerr SH, Santín C (2016) Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: Perceptions versus realities in a changing world Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371 (1696), 20150345.

Gagen MH, Zorita E, McCarroll D, Zahn M, Young GHF, Robertson I (2016) North Atlantic summer storm tracks over Europe dominated by internal variability over the past millennium. Nature Geoscience 9, 630.

Jones MW, Santín C, van der Werf GR, Doerr SH (2019) Global fire emissions buffered by the production of recalcitrant pyrogenic carbon. Nature Geoscience 12, 742-747.

Loader NJ, McCarroll D, Miles D, Young GHF, Davies D, Ramsey CB (2019) Tree ring dating using oxygen isotopes: a master chronology for central England. Journal of Quaternary Science 34, 475-490.

Meara RH, Árnason A., Elias OH, Hallbergsdóttir H, Hafsteinsson, SB. 2024. Magmatic Memories: Eldfell, 1973. Volcanica 7(1): 1-43.

Nainar A, Bidin K, Annammala KV, Ewers RRM, Reynolds G, Walsh RPD (2018) Hydrological dynamics of tropical streams on a gradient of land-use disturbance and recovery: A multi-catchment experiment. Journal of Hydrology 566, 581-594.

Preece K, Mark DF, Barclay J, Cohen BE, Chamberlain KJ, Jowitt C, Vye-Brown C, Brown RJ (2018) Bridging the gap: 40Ar/39Ar dating of volcanic eruptions from the ‘Age of Discovery’. Geology 46, 1035-1038.

Sanchez-Garcia C, Oliveira B, Keizer J, Doerr SH, Urbanek E (2020) Water repellency reduces soil CO2 efflux upon rewetting. Science of The Total Environment 708, 135014.

Young GHF, Gagen MH, Loader NJ, McCarroll D, Grudd H, Jalkanen R, Kirchhefer A, Robertson I (2019) Cloud cover feedback moderates Fennoscandian summer temperature changes over the past 1,000 years. Geophysical Research Letters 46, 2811-2819.

www.searrp.org South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership

www.safeproject.net  Stability of Altered Forest Environments