PhD: Habitat dependence of tipping points in upland soils and implications for natural flood management

About the project

Flooding and drought are intensifying under climate change. Natural Flood Management can reduce flood risk by restoring natural hydrological processes. This project addresses a key real-world challenge: how to optimise land and soil management in uplands using computer modelling to enhance infiltration, reduce runoff, and build resilience to extreme weather.

Soil structure is central to this hydrological partitioning, yet it is sensitive to extremes and management. Layered organo-mineral soils, covering ~20% of the UK, may respond to extremes with alternative stable states (Robinson et al. 2016), affecting local-scale flood risk and unknown consequences for intermediate scales. Management of these soils, especially mixing, may alter hydrological partitioning that the modelling will explore.

This project will develop new dynamic models to investigate how upland soils respond to management and drought and how these changes influence infiltration–runoff dynamics. The findings will directly inform the design and targeting of natural flood management interventions, supporting sustainable land management that works with natural processes to deliver multiple environmental and societal benefits.

The core methodology for this work is multiscale mathematical modelling that is closely integrated with experimental observations/data to enable new system function predictions in the changing climate. This will be achieved by combining analytical model reduction methods (asymptotic expansions) with numerical modelling methodologies and predictive machine learning (ML) and agentic AI processes to enable fast and accurate model prediction/usage that would be compatible to be integrated into web-based surveillance tools.

Supervisors

As well as Tiina Roose (lead supervisor) and Siul Ruiz from the University of Southampton, you will also receive supervision from: 

• David Robinson: davi2@ceh.ac.uk, from UKCEH.
• Alejandro Dussaillant: aledus@ceh.ac.uk, from UKCEH Wallingford.

Please contact the lead supervisor if you require further information about the project. 

References

Dadson, S.J., Hall, J.W., Murgatroyd, A., Acreman, M., Bates, P., Beven, K., Heathwaite, L., Holden, J., Holman, I.P., Lane, S.N. and O’Connell, E., 2017. A restatement of the natural science evidence concerning catchment-based ‘natural’flood management in the UK. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 473(2199), p.20160706.

Robinson, D.A., Jones, S.B., Lebron, I., Reinsch, S., Domínguez, M.T., Smith, A.R., Jones, D.L., Marshall, M.R. and Emmett, B.A., 2016. Experimental evidence for drought induced alternative stable states of soil moisture. Scientific reports, 6(1), p.20018.

Ruiz, S.A., Payvandi, S., Sweeney, P., Roose, T. (2025) Analytical equation for rapid estimation of pesticide leaching risk accounting for nonlinear sorption with bulk soil biodegradation, Soil Science Society of America Journal, https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/saj2.70120 

Potential supervisors

Lead supervisor

TR

Professor Tiina Roose

Professor-Biological&Environmental Model

Supervisors

Dr Siul Ruiz

Lecturer

Entry requirements

You must have a UK 2:1 honours degree or higher in a relevant subject. You can also have its international equivalent.

We are looking for:

• Familiarity with mathematical modeling of transport processes using computational and analytic approaches. 

If English is not your first language, you will need an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) overall score of 6.5, with a minimum of 6.0 in all components. Visit our English language proficiency pages to find out about other qualifications we accept.

Fees and funding

For UK students, the studentship covers UK fees, plus a stipend of £20,780 (UKRI Standard rate) tax-free per annum for up to 3.5 years.

How to apply

Apply for full-time study

Apply for part-time study

 You need to:

• add the project title under ‘Topic or field of research proposed’
• add your supervisor in section 2

 Applications should include:

• 1 page statement of your research interests in flooding and FLOOD-CDT and your rationale for your choice of project
• CV (resumé) giving details of your academic record and stating your research interests
• two current academic referees together with institutional email addresses
• academic transcripts and d​egree certificates (translated if not in English) – if you have completed both a BSc and an MSc, we require both.
• English language qualification (if applicable)

Contact us

Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences

If you have a general question, email our doctoral college: fels-pgr-apply@soton.ac.uk.

Project leader

For project specific queries, email the lead supervisor Professor Tiina Roose: t.roose@soton.ac.uk.