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Abbreviation | UKCEH |
---|---|
Formation | 1994[1] |
Legal status | Not-for-profit company limited by guarantee with charitable status |
Purpose | Environmental science for a world where people and nature prosper |
Headquarters | Wallingford, Oxfordshire, U.K. |
Location |
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Region served | International |
Chief Executive | Stuart Wainwright |
Website | www |
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a centre for excellence in environmental science across water, land and air. The organisation has a long history of investigating, monitoring and modelling environmental change. It operates from four sites in the UK and one in Ghana. Research topics include: air pollution, biodiversity, chemical risks in the environment, extreme weather events, droughts, floods, greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, sustainable agriculture, sustainable ecosystems, water quality, and water resources management.
UKCEH coordinates a number of long-term environmental science monitoring sites and programmes, including the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme, the Isle of May Long-Term Study, the UK National River Flow Archive, the Plynlimon catchment study, lakes monitoring at Loch Leven and in the English Lake District, the UK Cosmic-ray soil moisture monitoring network (COSMOS-UK), the UK Upland Waters Monitoring Network, the Biological Records Centre, and the UKCEH Countryside Survey. [2] The centre manages an urban atmospheric pollution observatory at the top of BT Tower in London. Its international work includes collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization on a global hydrological monitoring initiative [3] and working with European partners to set up butterfly and wider pollinator monitoring schemes. [4]
UKCEH is a strategic delivery partner for the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The institute has four locations: Wallingford (its headquarters), Edinburgh, Lancaster and Bangor.
UKCEH is a member of the Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER). [5]
The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) was formally established in March 1994 by John Krebs the then Chief Executive of NERC. It was formed by the drawing together of four research institutes: the Institute of Hydrology, the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, [6] the Institute of Freshwater Ecology and the Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology (IVEM). [1]
In 1994, Brian Wilkinson a Professor of Civil Engineering at Cranfield University, Director of the Institute of Hydrology, was appointed as the first CEH Director. In 1994 CEH had 15 laboratories and field stations across the UK. From 1996 onwards the number of sites was reduced and the centre now[ when? ] operates from 4 locations across the UK.
In the early years there was a need to integrate environmental science across the institutes: joint science programs were established together with an inter-disciplinary science fund. CEH expanded and by 1999 there were some 600 staff and about 300 students linked to the universities, with most registered for post-graduate qualification. CEH had global outreach with around 60 worldwide research projects. [1] A new headquarters was constructed on the Wallingford site.
In 1999 Wilkinson retired and Mike Roberts was appointed as CEH Director. He was succeeded by Professor Nuttall in 2001. In 2012 Mark Bailey was appointed to the position of Executive Director.
In December 2019, following UK Government approval, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology became autonomous from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), launching as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee with charitable status on 1 December that year. At the same time, it also changed its name to the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH).
Dr Stuart Wainwright OBE became Chief Executive in June 2023. [7]
Hydrology is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydrologist. Hydrologists are scientists studying earth or environmental science, civil or environmental engineering, and physical geography. Using various analytical methods and scientific techniques, they collect and analyze data to help solve water related problems such as environmental preservation, natural disasters, and water management.
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.
The National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS) is a centre for research, teaching, and technology development in Ocean and Earth science. NOCS was created in 1995, jointly between the University of Southampton and the UK Natural Environment Research Council and is located within the port of Southampton at a purpose-built dockside campus with modern facilities. In 2010 the university and NERC components demerged, and the NERC-managed component became the National Oceanography Centre. The two components of NOCS continue close collaboration through the jointly run Graduate School, shared research facilities and laboratories, complementary research groups, and many joint research grants and publications. The university component “Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton” (OES) is part of the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, (FELS). It was ranked 46th in the world for Earth and Marine Sciences by the QS World University Rankings in 2019.
The Biological Records Centre (BRC) established in 1964, is a national focus in the UK for terrestrial and fresh water species recording.
Dame Georgina Mary Mace, was a British ecologist and conservation scientist. She was Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystems at University College London, and previously Professor of Conservation Science and Director of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College London (2006–2012) and Director of Science at the Zoological Society of London (2000–2006).
The Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) in Lancaster, England, is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching, research and collaboration at Lancaster University, founded in 2007.
Jacqueline Myriam McGlade is a British-born Canadian marine biologist and environmental informatics professor. Her research concerns the spatial and nonlinear dynamics of ecosystems, climate change and scenario development. She is currently professor of resilience and sustainable development at the University College London Institute for Global Prosperity and Faculty of Engineering, UK, and professor at Strathmore University in the Institute for Public Policy and Governance, Kenya.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to hydrology:
Julia Mary Slingo is a British meteorologist and climate scientist. She was Chief Scientist at the Met Office from 2009 until 2016. She is also a visiting professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, where she held, prior to appointment to the Met Office, the positions of Director of Climate Research in the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) National Centre for Atmospheric Science and founding director of the Walker Institute for Climate System Research.
Katherine Jane Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown, is a British biologist, academic and life peer, who studies the relationship between long-term ecosystem dynamics and environmental change. She is Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Biology and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford, and an adjunct professor in biology at the University of Bergen. In 2018 she was elected Principal of St Edmund Hall, and took up the position from 1 October. She held the Tasso Leventis Chair of Biodiversity at Oxford and was founding Director, now Associate Director, of the Biodiversity Institute Oxford. Willis was Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2013 to 2018. Her nomination by the House of Lords Appointments Commission as a crossbench life peer was announced on 17 May 2022.
Jeremy Ambler Thomas OBE is a British ecologist noted for his work on the population, community, functional and evolutionary ecology of insects.
John Philip Burrows is professor of the Physics of the Ocean and Atmosphere and Director of the Institutes of Environmental Physics and Remote Sensing at the University of Bremen. He is also a Fellow of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Nancy B. Grimm is an American ecosystem ecologist and professor at Arizona State University. Grimm's substantial contributions to the understanding of urban and arid ecosystem biogeochemistry are recognized in her numerous awards. Grimm is an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Ecological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The Biodiversity Monitoring Switzerland (BDM) is a Swiss Confederation programme for the long-term monitoring of species diversity in Switzerland.
Rosemary S. Hails is a British population ecologist and entomologist and the current Director of Science and Nature at the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Prior to this appointment she was the Director of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Science for UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, managing and directing the science of 350 ecologists and hydrologists, in collaboration with the Science Director for Water and Pollution Science. Professor Hails successfully led the development of UKCEH's national capability research programme delivered by the Research Centre, which cuts across the complete portfolio of expertise. She has led the Valuing Nature Programme for NERC, since October 2014, and is currently a CoInvestigator in the NERC Funded "RENEW" and "RestReco" Projects. In 2000, she was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to environmental research.
Helen Elizabeth Roy, is a British ecologist, entomologist, and academic, specialising in ladybirds and non-native species. Since 2007, she has been a principal scientist and ecologist at the NERC's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. From 1997 to 2008, she taught at Anglia Ruskin University, rising to the rank of Reader in Ecology. She is the co-organiser of the UK Ladybird Survey, alongside Dr Peter Brown, is a visiting professor in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, is co-chair of the IPBES assessment of invasive alien species, and is a past President of the Royal Entomological Society.
Louise Heathwaite is a British environmental scientist. She is Distinguished Professor in the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Research and Enterprise. She is a hydrochemist working on diffuse environmental pollution, especially the pathways of nitrogen and phosphorus loss from agricultural land to water.
Sarah Wanless is an animal ecologist in the UK and is an expert on seabirds; she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is Honorary Professor at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Bridget Emmett is a British ecologist, Professor and Science Area Head for the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. She is the President of British Ecological Society from 2024.