Professor David Oliver

Professor

Biological and Environmental Sciences University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor David Oliver

Contact details

About me

Professor of Catchment Science.

The use of catchment resources is in ever-increasing demand from a range of stakeholders, often with competing or conflicting agendas. Effective management of pressures on land and water environments around the world is therefore critical to safeguard environmental quality and public health while also delivering opportunities for recreation, food production, energy generation and other key ecosystem services that catchments provide. My research integrates environmental risks and socio-ecological processes across catchment systems from source to sea. I work with both social and natural scientists and end-user & policy communities using interdisciplinary research approaches that span a wide range of fields. My primary research interests can be broadly classified as:

– Fate and transfer dynamics of diffuse pollutants (e.g. nutrients, faecal indicators, pathogens, emerging contaminants) across multiple scales;

– Managing competing demands on soil and water resources in catchments to benefit public health;

– Evidence-based policy for safer, healthier and more resilient bathing water environments;

– Health and wellbeing benefits of green and blue space, in particular the blue-health benefits of freshwater environments;

– Public perception of environmental risks to human health;

– Co-design of models and decision support systems with end-users to visualise risks to water quality at farm-to-landscape scales

For more information please visit: http://dmoliver1.wordpress.com/

Brief Biography 2023: Professor

2017-2023: Associate Professor

2013-2017: Senior Lecturer

2010-2013: Lecturer

2005-2010: PDRA, University of Lancaster

2005: PhD, University of Sheffield in collaboration with Rothamsted Research North Wyke, Physical Geography

2001: BSc, University of Sheffield, Physical Geography

Research InterestsThere are two critical strands of my research portfolio. The first is to further understanding of behavioural traits of pollutants in the soil-water continuum and advance process understanding in environmental and agricultural systems. The second is to use this knowledge to solve real world issues through applied research and knowledge exchange. To maximise the potential of these two research strands I operate within interdisciplinary research teams, with both social and natural scientists and the research and policy communities. My research interests can be defined within the following three key research themes: Environment, Pollution and Human Health: Understanding the fate and transfer of microbial pollutants and emerging pathogens warrants significant attention and is highly topical both within research council agendas and policy arenas. Integrated Catchment Management: Interdisciplinary frameworks that recognise the importance of integrating science and social science, multiple-pollutants and multiple-stakeholders represent an important shift for more rewarding catchment scale studies.Diffuse Pollution Risk Assessment and Modelling: The development of decision support tools and models for different stakeholder and end-users is paramount and offers potential to overlap and complement the previous two research themes.Project webpagesDelivering Healthy Water: Building the science:policy interface to protect bathing water qualityREMOFIO: Reshaping Models to Forecast Faecal Pathogen Risk to Humans ReBALAN:CE - Recycling Biomass to Agricultural LANd: Capitalising on EutrophicationExternal activities Editorial Board Member of the Journal: Environment International Member of the NERC Peer Review College. Member of the British Soil Science Society, British Hydrological Society, Society for General Microbiology, International Water Association and International Commission on Water Quality.

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