Zoom into Soil: Soils and Water

In this webinar, hear from Lisa Donovan, PhD Researcher at Cranfield University, and James Dowers, Catchment Scientist at Severn Trent Water Ltd., as they discuss soils and water.

Lisa Donovan is passionate about managing water resources in a sustainable way. She has an engineering degree in geosciences and hydrogeology from UniLaSalle (France), and she completed the Master’s degree in Advanced Water Management from Cranfield University with honours. Lisa is currently undertaking a PhD at Cranfield University investigating the impact of minimum tillage and cover crops on soil erosion risk on-farm and on river water quality in English surface water catchments. The Morgan-Morgan-Finney soil erosion model is applied and she is also focused on improving the model’s functionality.

James Dowers speaks about on ‘Severn Trent Environmental Protection Scheme (STEPS) : Protecting water by supporting farmers’. James is a Catchment Management Scientist at Severn Trent, before this he was a Soil Scientist at ADAS. James completed an MSc in Crop Improvement at the University of Nottingham in 2019. James is a member of the BSSS early careers committee. James’ current work involves supporting farmers and land managers to reduce their impact on the environment with a focus on water; which is achieved primarily by funding evidence based schemes in priority catchments.