First paper from Antony’s PhD is now available – Importance of sperm density in assessing the toxicity of metals to the fertilization of broadcast spawners. In the paper Antony shows that the way many ecotoxicology tests are done can lead to underestimation of toxicity – it depends on a) whether the action of the toxicant […]

UCL Press has just launched a new open access megajournal UCL Open: Environment which focuses on environment-related research and will include contributions from life and earth sciences, as well as medical, physical, population, engineering, and social sciences. Much like founding principles of UCL, the philosophy of the journal is to challenge the status […]

This year has begun with Craig teaching a summer intensive course for UniSA: Coastal Environments – 34 students for two weeks of lectures, practicals and visiting various coastal sites around Adelaide and the Fleurieu Peninsula. Antony and Holly have helped out with demonstrating and a guest lecture, respectively. A great bunch of enthusiastic […]

End of our first busy, but productive year based at the Mawson Lakes campus. 

A highlight this month has been Holly Niner handing up her PhD thesis:  Aligning economic development and conservation through marine biodiversity offsetting: An analysis of perspectives, policy and practice in Australia.   You can read some of Holly’s papers here, here, here and […]

Last week Hazel and Craig started collecting sediment samples from across Port Germein as part of their  Metals in Port Pirie Sediments project.  While it was hot (especially for early November!), at least the seas were calm and we covered a lot of ground (sea), collecting water quality and sediment samples from more than 50 […]

Congratulations to Hazel and Nyrstar, who have been successful in winning a mobility grant within the Futures Industries Accelerator Scheme.  The grant will embed Hazel in with the Environment team at the Nyrstar smelter in Port Pirie for a couple of days a week next year, where she will work through the smelter’s extensive archives […]

Finally had the chance to test out the group’s microROV (‘Bluey’) at a local marina. Our version of the BlueROV2 is equipped with an USBL positioning system, small gripper, lights, HD camera and enough backup batteries to go all day. It’s rated to  100 m depth and has 150 m of tether.

Works a treat and […]

We’re looking for a PhD student to join our group to work on a project to help assess the distribution and fate of metals in marine sediments adjacent to a large lead and zinc smelter in South Australia. The project will develop an industrial-ecological (systems) model of the dynamics of metal contamination marine sediments, incorporating both […]

At last!   Our new MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems is taking applications now for a start this September in London.

The new course is jointly run with UniSA, kicking off in London with courses on Resource Development and Sustainability, Renewable Energy, Law, Geopolitics and Research methods.  Students then transfer to Adelaide to do my course on […]

Holly and some co-authors have just written an article for the World Economic Forum, highlight how difficult it might be to manage the environmental impacts from Deep Sea Mining. A key point  is that biodiversity offsetting, where damage in one place is made up for by doing good or preserving biodiversity elsewhere, really isn’t a […]

Last week Craig presented a paper on ‘Social Media Use in the Australian Energy and Resources Sectors’ at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association meeting in Adelaide, which is the main annual meeting for the O&G industry in Australia.

Building on work that past students have done in Craig’s Social Licensing course, the paper documented […]

We didn’t note it at the time, but Mariya Koleva handed up and defended her PhD thesis earlier in the year.  Masha’s latest paper integrating water processing with environmental considerations is now out at Science of the Total Environment, with a author’s open access version available for 50 days at this link.

Well done!

We’ve moved, geographically at least.  While still part of Engineering at University College London, the ERME Group is now located in the Future Industries Institute at UniSA’s Mawson Lakes campus.  Following the closure of UCL Australia as a stand alone campus at the end of last year, along with the other UCL Australia staff and […]

One of CAS’s areas of teaching at UCL is in the relatively new area of ‘Social Licence to Operate’.  CAS’s MSc module Social Licensing (SERAG018)  is essentially about community engagement for the extractives industry, covering a range of aspects on how industry and their stakeholders actually do/can/should interact – from the theory about what a […]