Geography, Geology and the Environment

I completed my undergraduate degree at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) in Ireland and received a BSc with first class honours in Earth and Ocean Sciences in 2008. As part of my fourth year program, I conducted a field research project investigating nutrient influxes to Pollardstown Fen SAC, a major groundwater-fed wetland in County Kildare, Eastern Ireland.

Prior to arriving at Keele, I held a graduate research assistant post with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) at their headquarters in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK. At CEH, I was involved with a number of research projects based at the Pang-Lambourn chalk catchment which involved regular collaboration with the groundwater division British Geological Survey (BGS).

Duties included monitoring stream water quality, development of in-situ fluorescence spectroscopy sensor technology, telemetry system development, groundwater level monitoring and wetland temperature surveys.

I joined Keele in September 2010 to study for a PhD investigating potential natural attenuation of trichloroethene (TCE) in the hyporheic zone of a lowland stream (River Tern, Shropshire, UK).

I am currently in my third year of study. At present my research interests include the biogeochemistry of organic contaminants, carbon metabolism in freshwater systems, greenhouse gas production and groundwater/surface water interactions in lowland landscapes.

Affiliations:

• Fellow of the Geological Society of London
• International Association of Hydrogeologists
• British Hydrological Society
• American Geophysical Union
• North Staffordshire Group of the Geologist’s Association

My research is concerned with understanding the potential for contaminant attenuation at the groundwater/surface water interface (hyporheic zone) of rivers and streams; a key requirement in the UK’s implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).

The project is based at an experimental field site on the River Tern (Shropshire, UK) where trichloroethene (TCE) contamination has been detected at depth in the adjacent Permo-Triassic sandstone aquifer. The site was previously selected by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) as a representative ‘gaining’ river section draining permeable sandstone in their lowland catchment (LOCAR) thematic research program.

Study area on the River Tern in North Shropshire. The Tern catchment is predominantly underlain by Permo-Triassic sandstones, the UK’s second most important groundwater resource. The river derives much of its flow throughout the year from groundwater stored in this aquifer.	Sampling groundwater for dissolved trichloroethene from a deep abstraction borehole in the unconfined Permo-Triassic aquifer.

 The research is in collaboration with the Environment Agency and aims to identify and quantify in-situ processes in the near-river environment leading to a natural attenuation of the TCE plume. The project has established a high density riparian and hyporheic zone monitoring network with particular emphasis on multi-level sampling in the riverbed using a nested configuration.

Groundwater/surface connectivity and alluvial stratigraphy will be mapped using fibre-optic distributed temperature sensing, electrical resistivity tomography and ground truthing. A key focus of the project is to quantify the significance of ‘hotspots’ of TCE biodegradation and the coupling with denitrification and greenhouse gas production in sediment pore waters.

The significance of environmental factors including high levels of groundwater nitrate and sulphate on the reductive dechlorination potential of TCE will be investigated using anaerobic batch reactors. Numerical simulations of contaminant transport and biodegradation reactions will also be developed to serve as a tool for future risk management of the TCE plume by the Environment Agency and other stakeholders.

• Weatherill, J., Krause, S., Voyce, K., Cassidy, N., Ullah, S. 2012. Evaluating the natural attenuation potential of a TCE plume at the groundwater/surface water interface of a nitrate impacted aquifer. Proceedings of the 39^th International Association of Hydrogeologists Congress, September 16-22, Niagara Falls, Canada.
• Weatherill, J., Krause, S., Voyce, K. 2012. Delineating the discharge zone and potential natural attenuation of a chlorinated solvent plume to a gaining lowland stream: A multi-scale approach. Geophysical Research Abstracts. Vol. 14, EGU2012-907.
• Krause, S., Taylor, S., Weatherill, J., Haffenden, A., Levy, A., Cassidy, N., Thomas, P. 2012. Fibre-optic distributed temperature sensing for characterizing the impacts of vegetation coverage on thermal patterns in woodlands. Ecohydrology, DOI: 10.1002/eco.1296.
• Krause, S., Blume, T., Weatherill, J., Munz, M., Tecklenburg, C., Angermann, L., Cassidy, N. 2012. How important are biogeochemical hotspots at aquifer-river interfaces for surface water and groundwater quality? Geophysical Research Abstracts. Vol. 14, EGU2012-3689.
• Krause S., Weatherill, J., Munz M., Tecklenburg C., Blume T. 2011. Hot moments in cold spots - Multi-scale tracing of reactivity hotspots in hyporheic environments. Geophysical Research Abstracts. Vol. 13, EGU2011-9110.
• Krause, S., Blume, T., Angermann, L., Hannah, D. M., Weatherill, J., Cassidy, N. J. 2011. Nested heat tracer experiments for identifying heterogeneity of aquifer-river exchange at multiple scales. Eos Trans. AGU, 90(52), Fall Meet. Suppl.