Dr Emma Hellawell

Research Fellow

MA, PhD(Cantab), CEng, MICE

e.hellawell@surrey.ac.uk

Academic and research departments

School of Sustainability, Civil and Environmental Engineering.

About

Biography

Emma is a Chartered Civil Engineer and NERC Embedded Digital Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and working with LEAP Environmental. Her current project involves developing a Carbon Reduction Digital Twin (CReDiT) of brownfield remediation. This aims to be a design tool for appraising brownfield remediation options, focusing on calculating and reducing the carbon footprint of the process and improving material sustainability.

Her previous research focused on obtaining and analysing local government data on soil contamination, including asbestos and PAH. Emma has worked in local government as a contaminated land officer, civil engineering consultancy as a geoenvironmental engineer and as a lecturer in soil mechanics and environmental geotechnics at the University of Surrey. Her main research area involves contaminated land issues such as investigation and remediation of brownfield sites. This area developed from her PhD at Cambridge University investigating the migration of pollutants in soil using numerical and geotechnical centrifuge modelling.

Her consultancy experience was obtained at Atkins and Leap Environmental Ltd., which included working on projects including the site investigation at the Millennium Site, Greenwich, remediation at Fulham gasworks and acting as verification engineer for remediation work at housing developments. In local government, she obtained DEFRA funding and project managed a major Part IIa remediation project of contaminated residential gardens. She also developed a risk ranking criteria for Part IIa sites and has overseen the contaminated land requirements of the planning process particularly for residential development.

She has research experience in overseeing PhD and Research Council projects on satellite monitoring of water quality, air pollution from traffic, using geographical information systems (GIS) on civil engineering projects and intelligent transport systems.

Emma is also a STEM ambassador, keen to promote civil engineering, particularly in primary schools. She is a member of the Women's Engineering Society and the Society of Brownfield Risk Assessors.

News

13 DEC 2022

Carbon reduction tool project recognised in Brownfield Awards

Research

Research interests

NERC Embedded Digital Researcher (with LEAP Environmental)

The aim of the proposed project is to apply digital twin technology to optimise remediation solutions for brownfield sites in terms of ensuring the site is ‘suitable for use’, whilst optimising material movement and use, and minimising carbon emissions. The research is also directly relevant to new requirements in local government for sustainability statements on major projects. This will be achieved through the following shared objectives, developed with the non-academic host:

Develop a digital twin of a development site using existing desk study and site investigation information, including enabling additional input as the project develops.
Develop a road map and modelling tools to evaluate material and process requirements for remediation options and modifications.
Calculate the comparative carbon emissions of these remediation processes.

Daphne Jackson Research Project

Soil contamination data on brownfield (former industrial) sites is generated as part of the UK planning process. This includes data on pollutants that are considered a high risk to future site users e.g. lead, asbestos and benzo(a)pyrene (a carcinogen). As a result local government has a vast resource of highly relevant contamination data that is at present under-utilised.

The aim of this research project was to:

Establish the extent and nature of the data held by Local Authorities
Analyse this data to identify trends and spatial patterns
Explore the potential to predict where contamination may be present
Evaluate how such analysis could help reduce the costs of brownfield site redevelopment.

Research projects

Carbon Reduction Digital Twin (CReDiT ) for Brownfield Remediation

NERC Embedded Digital Researcher - Working with LEAP Environmental developing a digital twin of brownfield remediation - with a module calculating the carbon footprint of design options.

Analysis of asbestos and benzo-a-pyrene levels in UK urban soil from local authority data

Daphne Jackson Research Fellowship - analysing local government data on brownfield contamination.

Development of water quality analysis tool using satellite data

Preliminary study into the development of a tool to evaluate the water quality of lakes in Ethiopia using satellite images.

Prediction of traffic-generated pollution for strategic transport planning

EPSRC funded project. Research Assistant: Dr M.Mavroulidou

Regenerating the brownfields : the development of methods and procedures for remediating previously used sites for future development

EPSRC and Tony Gee and Partners

Incorporating industrial symbiosis into regional resource planning

EPSRC and National Industrial Symbiosis Programme

Environment v. Traffic – finding the balance

EPSRC and Surrey County Council

Integrating Scientific and lay accounts of Air Pollution

ESRC and NERC (with Department of Psychology at the University of Surrey)

Air pollution from urban traffic

Royal Society Grant

An investigation into the use of traffic and transport models to determine air quality

EPSRC Case Studentship: Surrey County Council and Borough Councils of Surrey.

2019 I attended the Daphne Jackson Conference and presented a poster that was awarded a prize. A link to my review of the conference is below:

https://daphnejackson.org/news/conference-summary-a-current-fellows-perspective/

Supervision

Completed postgraduate research projects I have supervised

PhD/ EngD students and projects:

P. Jenson (2010) Incorporating industrial symbiosis into regional resource planning

N. Cropp (2009) Regenerating the Brownfields: Decision support for contaminated land professionals

P. Canning (2009) Environment v. Traffic: finding the balance

M. Lythe (2006) Comparison of spatial subsets in the analysis of air pollution data

I.Cowan (2005) The development and application of an advanced screening model to predict air quality

L. Lim (2004) A numerical investigation of traffic-related pollutants in an urban area

T. Kelay (2004) Integrating scientific and lay accounts of air pollution

Teaching

As a University lecturer (1998-2010) I taught the following courses/modules:

Module leader:

Level 1 Civil Engineering Practice

Level 2 Soil mechanics

Level 2 Laboratory module (geotechnics)

Level 3 Sustainable transport

Level 4 / MSc Environmental Geotechnics.

Module contributor

Level 1 Geology field course (Devon)

Level 2 Integrated Design

Level 2 Leadership and management

Level 3 Integrated Design

Level 3/4 Individual Project

Level 4 Multidisciplinary design project

Publications

Highlights

Hellawell, E. E. and Hughes, S. J. 2021. Evaluation and Potential Uses of Site Investigation Soil Contamination Data Submitted to Uk Local Government, Environmental Management, Springer, (May). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01648-1

Hellawell, E.E. and Hughes, S.J. (2021) Asbestos contamination on brownfield development sites in the UK, Environmental Research, Vol 198, July.

Hellawell, E.E. and Hughes, S.J. (2020) The potential use of local government planning data for soil contamination analyses, Institution of Civil Engineers Journal of Municipal Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1680/jmuen.20.00011

Jensen P. D., Basson L., Hellawell E. E. & Leach M. (2012) ‘Habitat’ Suitability Index Mapping for industrial Symbiosis Planning. Journal of Industrial Ecology: Special Issue on Industrial Symbiosis 16(1): 38-50.

Jensen P. D., Basson L., Hellawell E. E., Bailey M. R. & Leach M. (2011) Quantifying ‘Geographic Proximity’: Experiences from the United Kingdom’s National Industrial Symbiosis Programme. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 55(7): 703-712.

Cropp, N.; Hellawell, E.; Elghali, L.; Banks, A. (2010) Contaminated land risk assessment: variability in site assessment and decision making in the UK. Land Contamination & Reclamation 2010 Vol.18 No.2 pp.181-194

Canning, P.E., Hughes, S.J., Hellawell, E.E., Gatersleben, B.C.M., Fairhead, C.J. (2010) Reasons for participating in formal employer led carpool schemes as perceived by their users, Transportation Planning and Technology, Vol. 33, No. 8, December, pp733-745.

Canning P.E., Hellawell E.E., Gatersleben B.C.M, Hughes S.J., Fairhead C. J. (2010) Devolution of transport powers to Local Government:Impacts of the 2004 Traffic management Act in England. Transport Policy, Vol. 17, Issue 2, March 2010.pp 64-71.

Holloway-Strong, M.U., Hughes, S.J. and Hellawell, E.E. (2007) The Stress-Deformation Behaviour of Chalk, ASCE, Journal of Geomechanics, Vol. 7, No. 6, December, pp403-410.

Mavroulidou, M., Hughes, S.J. and Hellawell, E.E. (2007) Developing the interaction matrix technique as a tool assessing the impact of traffic on air quality, Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 84, Issue 4, September, pp 513-522.

Mavroulidou, M., Hughes S.J. and Hellawell, E.E (2006) A comparison of two interaction matrix coding techniques used in a GIS-based tool for air quality assessment Global NEST Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp306-314.

Lim, L.L., Hellawell, E.E. and Hughes, S.J. (2005) Integrated decision support system for urban air quality assessment", Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software, Vol 20/7 pp 947-954

Mavroulidou, M., Hellawell, E.E., Hughes, S.J. (2004) A Qualitative Tool Combining an Interaction Matrix and a GIS, to Map Vulnerability to Traffic Induced Air Pollution, Journal of Environmental Management, April, Vol. 70/4 pp 283-289.

Hellawell, E.E., Lamont-Black, J., Kemp, A.C. and Hughes, S.J. (2001) GIS as a tool in Geotechnical Engineering, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, Volume GT149, Issue 02, April 2001, pp 85-94.

Hellawell, E E., Hawley, J.,Pooley, A.J.,Eskesen, S.D., Garrod, B. and Leggett, M. (2001) Metros Under Construction Around the World, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Journal on Geotechnical Engineering 149, Jan. 29-39.

Hellawell, E.E., Kemp, A.C. and Nancarrow,D.J. (2001) A GIS Raster Technique to Optimise Contaminated Soil Removal, Engineering Geology, 60, June, pp107-116.

Hellawell, E.E., Savvidou, C. and Booker, J.R. (1994) Modelling of contaminated land reclamation, Soils and Foundations, Japanese Soc. of Civil Eng., Sept.