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The applied use of earthworms in soil restoration, bio-monitoring, agro-ecosystems and organic waste management has had wide-reaching impact on the commercial sector and the public. A variety of commercial groups (such as the Forestry Commission and BAE Systems) have benefitted from this research in both the UK and abroad. In addition to this, earthworm research has also reached the public domain through outreach activities and media coverage. For example, this UoA was involved in a National Open Air Laboratories campaign. Our earthworm identification guide produced in collaboration with the Natural History Museum in London has now been widely distributed and used.
Impact: Policy, Economic: Improved soil fertility and crop yield, reduced erosion and flood and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from waterlogged and compacted soils.
Significance: A decrease in soil structural quality as a result of compaction or erosion decreases grain yield substantially. Novel indicators that assess visual structure and biological quality allow soil samples to be easily assessed for possible improvements in quality.
Beneficiaries: Farmers, agronomists, environmental bodies e.g. Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), water companies and waterway authorities, local government, policy makers and the general public.
Attribution: Dr. Ball and Prof. Watson (SRUC)
Reach: The visual structure index uses a simple colour guide that has been widely distributed and promoted in nine countries overseas and three continents.
Newcastle research into improving commercial soil-based greenhouse productivity has led to an increase in profitability (due to higher yields and lower costs) and a significant reduction in the negative environmental impacts of commercial, organic and other soil-based greenhouse crop production systems in Europe (UK, Greece and Crete). Newcastle's research has led to improved profits to UK organic tomato farmers estimated to be up to £100,000/ha/year and has allowed large scale organic greenhouse production to be a viable option to meet the demands of the UK organic market. In Greece increased profits are estimated at €25,000 per ha/year and in Crete the estimated value of reduced soil disease control and pest management is €110,000 per ha/year.
Research by Dr Switzer since 2009 has led to scale-up and commercialisation of a new smouldering combustion-based remediation technology: Self-sustaining Treatment for Active Remediation (STAR). STAR is sold commercially by SiREM, a division of Geosyntec Consultants, Inc. that has an exclusive worldwide licence. Since its commercial launch in 2010, STAR has [text removed for publication] and now employs 5 staff. Clean-up rates for STAR far exceed those of other methods, achieving 99.9+% destruction of contaminants in the soil and delivering cleaned soil suitable for reuse.
The development of the bespoke finite element software ICFEP (Imperial College Finite Element Program) is the main research outcome of the numerical group in the Geotechnics Section at Imperial College (IC). The research conducted in the Section since 1993 has led to a substantial growth of ICFEP's modelling capabilities in both complexity and robustness, following closely the advancements in understanding of real soil behaviour achieved through laboratory and field investigations of soils. Between 2008 and 2013 the application of these modelling capabilities to practical engineering problems, which are generally unavailable with a similar degree of sophistication in commercial software, amounts to over 80 projects of which a third are worth multi-billion pounds in global value. The impact of ICFEP's application has been to reduce the geotechnical risk and the cost of design and construction, and to give confidence in the environmental stability of design solutions, by providing accurate predictions of soil response associated with individual projects.
This case study outlines how research at Plymouth University in soil science has been extended to a new way of measuring and characterising porous solids and their pore fluids by generating realistic simulated three-dimensional void networks and is now being used across a wide range of industry sectors. The research has been pioneered, patented and marketed and is available to industry via the products Pore-CorTM and PoreXpertTM. The approach has impacted nationally and internationally across a range of sectors including energy companies such as EDF and paper production such as Hewlett Packard. It has improved efficiency and operations in industry such as in nuclear reactors and led to a University spin out company.
New analytical methods have been used in commercial applications for the 2012 Olympic Park to measure petroleum hydrocarbons in soil. Cranfield developed techniques, in collaboration with Eurofins, to meet the needs for contaminated land risk assessment and enable the selection of remediation strategies. Decision-support tools were developed for risk management and environmental rehabilitation of contaminated sites. The tools contribute to end-user confidence in remediation technology, reduced remediation costs and minimised waste disposal to landfill with subsequent savings in CO2 emissions. Our research laid a road map to demonstrate risk reduction and provided practical and cost efficient soil quality management tools.
Research at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng) has led to the creation of a method for measuring strain throughout a range of civil engineering structures using Distributed Fibre Optic Sensing (DFOS) and computing the stresses in these structures. This detailed information and associated insights have reduced reliance on conservative safety margins, while giving greater assurance of safety. The result has been significant reductions in construction materials and construction time. The work has generated direct savings of over GBP15M in three major infrastructure projects from 2011 to 2013 including Crossrail. It has had a wider influence across the whole industry by setting standards for geothermal piles in 2012, which were instrumental in the creation of this new industrial sector, and by changing attitudes in construction about the value of instrumentation and modelling.