Geography, Geology and the Environment

I did an M.Sc. in Environmental Science from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan and was awarded a gold medal for obtaining first position in the class in order of merit in 1996. Following graduation, I worked for WWF-Pakistan as a Conservation Officer from 1996 to1999). I proceeded to Louisiana State University for an MS degree in Wetland Science and Management under the Fulbright scholarship of the US State Department (1999-2001). I did my Ph.D. in Wetland Biogeochemistry and Coastal Ecology at the School of Coasts and Environment, Louisiana State University. I spent a year (2005-2006) at Rutgers University, USA evaluating the impacts of chronic nutrient run-off on water and air quality.

From 2006-2008, I worked on quantifying greenhouse gas fluxes from soils in Canada under a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Geography, McGill University. This research was undertaken in the Biogeochemistry Research Group at McGill led by Professors Tim Moore and Nigel Roulet. I also worked as a part-time teaching Faculty in the Department of Geography at Concordia University, Montreal.

From Jan. 2009 to Jan. 2011, I worked as Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Sustainable Water Management (led by Prof. L. Heathwaite), Lancaster University, UK. I conducted research on the implications of groundwater-surface water connectivity for nitrogen transformation in river beds sediments in Cumbria, UK.

In Feb. 2011, I joined Keele University as a Lecturer in Environmental Science and now establishing research in the fields of terrestrial and wetland soil biogeochemistry in addition to teaching. I am also a member of the EPSAM Environment and Sustainability Research Cluster at Keele University.

I am broadly interested in the biogeochemistry of nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) across a range of environments. This includes wetland, forest and cultivated soils and hyporheic sediments for water quality improvement, air and soil quality protection, C sequestration, ecosystem restoration and sustainable management of natural resources. I mainly investigate landscape scale patterns and controls (anthropogenic and natural) on biogeochemical pools and fluxes between pedosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere; however, I also undertake bench top experiments to advance mechanistic understanding of key biogeochemical processes and fluxes. This knowledge provides a framework for identifying applied techniques for maintaining ecological resilience, ecosystem restoration and sustainable utilization of natural resources under various management, landuse and climate change scenarios. My broader research interests cut across the following three themes in biogeochemistry research:

1.      Greenhouse Gas Fluxes and Global Climate Change

Terrestrial forest and wetland soils in watersheds as well as cultivated soils are significant sinks of atmospheric carbon and play a substantial role in greenhouse gas exchanges with the atmosphere. Local to global scale changes in land use types and management, excessive fertilizer use in agriculture and human-induced changes in the climate have shifted the interactive controls of various biotic and abiotic controls of primary productivity and decomposition of organic C and N in soils and fluxes of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere. A detailed understanding of both landscape scale and plot scale controls of C sequestration and greenhouse gas fluxes from soils in sub-tropical, temperate and boreal climates makes part of my research to be able to reduce human impacts on key biogeochemical pools and fluxes in soils with air and water.

2.      Restoration Ecology

A tremendous loss of natural wetlands in watersheds mainly due to cultivation and urbanization has in turn led to a significant loss in wetland ecosystem functions and services. There is particular interest to restore wetlands in watersheds in a way that could render key functions of wetlands and services such as carbon sequestration and attenuation of pollutant run-off from cultivation and urban environments beside provision of habitat to wildlife, flood control and groundwater recharge. My research explores and identifies restoration techniques that could achieve multiple functional attributes of wetlands.

3.      Water quality at Landscape Scale

Agricultural intensification, excessive fertilizer use, rising food demands and urbanization are often associated with nutrient/pollutant loss into surface and groundwater. Loss of nutrients such as mineral and dissolved organic N and phosphorus (P) from croplands and urban land uses cascading through soils, groundwater, rivers, lakes and estuaries result in degradation of water quality such as eutrophication and hypoxia. Given the significance of maintaining food productivity for human consumption, my research identifies soil management practices that reduce loss of nutrients, improve nutrient use efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas N₂O emissions from croplands coupled with sustainable agriculture and urbanization.

Regional Ecosystem Experiences

Throughout my postgraduate and post-doctoral research work, I have been very fortunate to have gained experience working in diverse wetland and terrestrial ecosystems. Some of the major eco-regions where I have worked and/or working includes bottomland hardwood forests and cultivated lands in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial valley, coastal marshes in southern Louisiana, temperate, alpine and sub-tropical ecozones of northern Pakistan, temperate riverine forests and wetlands in New Jersey, white pine forests in southern Ontario, deciduous forests and swamps around Montreal, black spruce forests and wetlands in Chibougamau, central Quebec , boreal forests [black spruce, jackpine, aspen, alder and boreal peatlands] in James Bay region, northern Quebec, Canada, and groundwater fed rivers  and wetlands in northern England.

Greenhouse gas sampling, deciduous forests-Montreal.	Clear-cut boreal forestry impacts on N and C cycling	Greenhouse gas sampling, Montreal, Canada
Greenhouse gas sampling, riverine pore water, UK	Surveying the role of BMPs in pollutant removal-USA.	Agric. soil sampling in Beasley watershed, Mississippi.

Recent Publications (*indicate students)

Peer-Reviewed

• Lansdown K., M. Trimmer, C. M. Heppell, F. Sgouridis, S. Ullah, A. L. Heathwaite, A. Binley, and H. Zhang  2012. Characterisation of the key pathways of dissimilatory nitrate reduction and their response to complex organic substrates in hyporheic sediments. Limnology and Oceanography 57: 387-400.
• Ullah, S., and T. R. Moore. 2011. Biogeochemical controls on methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide fluxes from deciduous forests soils in eastern Canada. JGR-Biogeoscience 116: G03010, doi:10.1029/2010JG001525.
• Frasier*, R., S. Ullah and T. R. Moore. 2010.  Nitrous oxide consumption potentials of well drained forest soils in southern Quebec. Geomicrobiology Journal 27: 53-60.
• Peichl, M*, M. A. Arain, S. Ullah and T. R. Moore. 2010. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide exchanges in an age-sequence of temperate pine forests. Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02066.x(in press).
• Ullah, S., and T. R. Moore. 2009. Soil drainage and vegetation control of nitrogen transformation in forest soils, southern Quebec. JGR-Biogeoscience 114, G01014, doi:10.1029/2008JG000824.
• Ullah, S., R. Frasier*, L. Pelletier, and T. R. Moore. 2009. Greenhouse gas fluxes from boreal forest soils during the snow-free period, Quebec. Can. J. Fore. Res. 39:666-680.
• Ullah, S., R. Frasier*, L. King*, N. Picotte-Anderson* and T. R. Moore. 2008. Potential fluxes of N₂O and CH₄ from three forests type soils in eastern Canada. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 40:986-994
• Ullah, S and S. P. Faulkner. 2006. Use of cotton gin trash to enhance denitrification in restored forested wetlands. Forest Ecology and Management 237: 557-563
• Ullah, S. andG. M. Zinati. 2006. Denitrification and nitrous oxide emissions from riparian forests soils exposed to prolonged nitrogen run-off. Biogeochemistry 81:253-267.
• Ullah, S. and S. P. Faulkner. 2006. Denitrification potential of different land-use types in an agricultural watershed, Lower Mississippi Valley. Ecological Engineering 28: 131-140.
• Ullah, S. and S. P. Faulkner.  2006. Functional assessment of urban forested wetlands. Proc. Pak. Acad. Sci. J. 43: 15-28.
• Ullah, S., G.A Breitenbeck and S.P. Faulkner. 2005. Denitrification and N₂O emission from forested and cultivated alluvial clay soil. Biogeochemistry 73: 499-513.

Newsletters Contribution

• Ullah, S., and T. R. Moore. 2009. Topographic Controls of N₂O and CH₄ from Deciduous and Boreal Forests Soils in Eastern Canada. European Union’s Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study Newsletter No.7, June 2009. Details here.
• Ullah, S. 1999. Koh-i-Sufaid (White Mountains) in Kurram Agency: A Paradise of Biodiversity. Natura 26: 21-22,  WWF-Pakistan's Quarterly Magazine.

• CHE-10044 - Introductory Environmental Chemistry. Contributor to the course
• ESC-30020 - Water Resources. Contributor to the course
• ESC-20032 - Environmental Analystical Methods. Contributor to the course
• ESC-10042 - Environmental Science Skills. Contributor to field trips for sills demonstration