Centre for Environmental Health and Engineering
Our Centre is a designated World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for the protection of water quality and human health.
We have a research capability in developing, implementing and managing innovative solutions and interventions for the protection of the environment and public health. We are a diverse multidisciplinary research group with background expertise in civil engineering, chemical engineering, chemistry, microbiology, virology, zoology, public health and mathematics.
Research capabilities
We provide support to international governments through international agencies such as WHO, Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and relief organisations such as Oxfam, UNICEF and Medicins Sans Frontier (MSF).
We undertake research activities and services that address today’s environmental and public health global challenges.
Research takes place across the following areas:
- Advanced water and wastewater treatment and resource recovery/reuse (water- energy-materials)
- Fate and behaviour of contaminants-including emerging ones- in the environment
- Water, sanitation and public health (WASH) in the developing world
- Recreational water quality; risk assessment and management
- Remote sensing, catchment surveillance, water resources management, risks and extreme weather in the context of climate change and resilience
- Urban pollution and health in cities and megacities.
- Water resources surveillance
- Modelling and management
- Pollution control and waste management.
Small water supplies research
Small drinking water supplies pose a particular risk to public health. Researchers in this group like Katherine Pond, are working with the World Health Organisation to improve risk assessments for small water supplies. We have developed two films to assist communities using these supplies to carry out risk assessments to identify potential hazards to the water supply.
Research projects
Active projects
Remote quantification of soil organic carbon
Principal investigator: Dr Belen Marti-Cardona
Start date:
End date:
Funding amount: £88,112
Boosting prosperity and health by turning sewage into fertiliser
Principal investigator: Dr Devendra Saroj
Start date:
End date:
Funding amount: £200,000
Predicting the polymer-specific fate of aquatic plastic litter
Principal investigator: Dr Tom Bond
Start date: December 2019
End date: March 2022
Funding amount: £260,881
Improving the management of small drinking-water systems
Principal investigator: Dr Katherine Pond
Start date: 2017
End date: Ongoing
Completed projects
Numerical modelling of log dams: A tool for building guidance - proof of concept
Principal investigator: Dr Belen Marti-Cardona
Start date:
End date:
Funding amount: £38,334
Improving water safety planning: Data to decisions’ – case studies from Uganda and Rwanda
Principal investigator: Dr Katherine Pond
Start date: January 2021
End date: July 2021
Funding amount: £48,000
Integrating hydrological modelling and satellite data to inform crop field soil moisture
Principal investigator: Dr Belen Marti-Cardona
Start date:
End date:
Funding amount: £77,136
Maize mapping and sustainable water use in Afghanistan
Principal investigator: Dr Belen Marti-Cardona
Start date:
End date:
Funding amount: £97,285
NexCities: Water-energy-nutrient nexus in the cities of the future
Principal investigator: Dr Devendra Saroj
Start date:
End date:
Funding amount: £41,600
Prizes we've won
Meet the team
Dr Devendra Saroj
Head of Centre for Environmental Health and Engineering
Dr Stephen Battersby
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner, Environmental Health and Housing Consultant
Dr Thomas Bond
Senior Lecturer
Professor Abigail Bristow
Head of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor Jennifer Colbourne
Chief Drinking Water Inspector, DWI
Dr Bing Guo
Lecturer
Dr Emma Hellawell
Research Fellow
Dr Susan Hughes
Reader
Dr Julie Kinzelman
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Racine Public Health Department
Professor Prashant Kumar
Associate Dean (International), Professor and Chair in Air Quality and Health; Founding Director, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE)
Professor Barry Lloyd
Emeritus Professor of Environmental Health Engineering
Professor Matthias Maier
Stadtwerke Karlsruhe
Dr Belen Marti-Cardona
Senior Lecturer in Earth Observation and Hydrology
Dr Katherine Pond
Senior Lecturer
Professor Paul Sherlock
Formerly of Oxfam and Coordinator of Water and Sanitation Emergencies, UNICEF
Postgraduate research students
Salihu Jarmajo Ahmed
Evaluation of waste-to-energy (WtE) in Bauchi Metropolis (Nigeria): A key component to comprehensive solid waste management
Precious Amori
Reclamation of mixed-wastewater by low-cost technologies for agricultural reuse
Francis Bangnira
Instream wood accumulation at bridges: Exploring drivers and modelling their effect in UK rivers
Marine Diana
Hunting for bladder carcinogens
Richard King
The review and update of sanitary inspections for small water supplies and the gauging of their impacts
Joan Pauline Talubo
Assessing island socio-ecological resilience for disaster risk and recovery planning in the Philippines