Dr. Amy Rose Carmel Thomas

Ecosystem Services; Soil; Land Degradation Neutrality; Land use and management change; GIS; R; Model development and implementation; Model integration; Policy support

Summary of Professional Expertise 

Dr Amy Thomas is an Ecosystem Services Modeller at UK CEH and her interests focus on soil carbon and soil physics, land use change, model linkages and Ecosystem Services modelling. Her work on a range of projects has involved python and R scripting for code development and validation, as well as processing and mapping of numerous national spatial datasets.  She led coordination of “ERAMMP” quick response modelling activities and developed and implemented python toolboxes in GIS to map potential land use change. Her work on the “ERAMMP” Integrated Modelling Platform has included linking land use change scenarios to outcome model data cubes and post-processing outcomes to Ecosystem Services for mapping, valuation and ingestion into a modelling platform. These Ecosystem Services included water quality and WFD status (accounting for hydrological accumulation), GHG emissions (based on agricultural land management), and carbon stocks in soils and vegetation (following LULUCF inventory methods). 

Other work has included:  

• Statistical analysis of Countryside Survey data in R, using GAMMs to assess anthropogenic and natural drivers of changes in soil properties.  

• Data collection, interpretation and processing for the Defra Sustainable Intensification Project, helping to develop the “Dynamic Typology Tool”. 

• Further refinement of this tool to represent data at 1km for Wales 

• Development of python toolboxes to map land use 

Publications

Robinson D.A.; Thomas A.; Reinsch S.; Lebron I.; Feeney C.J.; Maskell L.C.; Wood C.M.; Seaton F.M.; Emmett B.A.; Cosby B.J.; , 2022, Analytical modelling of soil porosity and bulk density across the soil organic matter and land-use continuum. Scientific Reports, 12

Feeney C.J.; Cosby B.J.; Robinson D.A.; Thomas A.; Emmett B.A.; Henrys P.; , 2022, Multiple soil map comparison highlights challenges for predicting topsoil organic carbon concentration at national scale. Scientific Reports, 12

Alison Jamie; Botham Marc; Maskell Lindsay C.; Garbutt Angus; Seaton Fiona M.; Skates James; Smart Simon M.; Thomas Amy R.C.; Tordoff George; Williams Bronwen L.; Wood Claire M.; Emmett Bridget A.; , 2022, Woodland, cropland and hedgerows promote pollinator abundance in intensive grassland landscapes, with saturating benefits of flower cover. Journal of Applied Ecology, 59, 342-354

Harrison, P.A., Dunford, R., Beauchamp, K., Cooper, J., Cooper, J.M., Dickie, I., Fitch, A., Gooday, R., Hollaway, M., Holman, I.P., Jones, L., Matthews, R., Mondain-Monval, T., Norris, D.A., Sandars, D., Seaton, F., Siriwardena, G.M., Smart, S.M., Thomas, A.R.C., Trembath, P., Vieno, M., West, B., Williams, A.G., Whittaker, F., Bell, C. (2022). Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring & Modelling Programme (ERAMMP). ERAMMP Report-60: ERAMMP Integrated Modelling Platform (IMP) Land Use Scenarios. Report to Welsh Government (Contract C210/2016/2017)(UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Projects 06297 & 06810)

Thomas, A., Cosby, B.J., Gooday, R. , Lyons, H. , Siriwardena, G. , Kettel, E. , Matthews, R. , Beauchamp, K. , Petr, M. , Emmett, B.A. 2021. Rapid Adaptive Modelling for Policy Support towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Brexit and the Livestock Sectors in Wales. Environmental Science Policy.

Wuepper D, Borrelli P, Panagos P, Lauber T, Crowther T, Thomas A, Robinson DA. A ‘debt’based approach to land degradation as an indicator of global change. Global Change Biology. 2021 Nov;27(21):5407-10.

Dan Evans, Borrelli, Pasquale; Chenu, Claire; Ferreira, Carla; Griffiths, Robert; Kalantari, Zahra; Keesstra, Saskia; Lal, Rattan; Panagos, Panos; Seifollahi-Aghmiuni, Samaneh; Smith, Pete; Steenhuis, Tammo; Thomas, Amy R.C; Visser, Saskia. 2021. Sustainable futures over the next decade are rooted in soil science. European Journal of Soil Science.

Alison, Jamie; Botham, Marc; Maskell, Lindsay; Garbutt, R; Seaton, Fiona; Skates, James; Smart, Simon; Thomas, Amy; Tordoff, George; Williams, Bronwen; Wood, Claire; Emmett, Bridget. 2021 Woodland, cropland, hedgerows and flower cover underpin pollinator abundance in improved grassland landscapes. Journal of Applied Ecology.

Danny Hooftman; James Bullock; Laurence Jones; Thomas, Amy R.C.; Felix Eigenbrod; Barredo Jose; Georg Kindermann; Matthew Forrest. 2021. Weighted Ensembles Reduce Uncertainty in Ecosystem Service Modelling. One Earth.

Feeney, C. J., Cosby, B. J., Robinson, D. A., Thomas, A., Emmett, B., & Henrys, P. 2022 Ensemble soil map assessment highlights challenges for predicting topsoil organic carbon concentration at national scale. Nature Scientific reports

Thomas A, Cosby BJ, Henrys P, Emmett B. Patterns and trends of topsoil carbon in the UK: Complex interactions of land use change, climate and pollution. Science of The Total Environment. 2020 Apr 17 

Thomas A, Masante D, Jackson B, Cosby B, Emmett B, Jones L. Fragmentation and thresholds in hydrological flow‐based ecosystem services. Ecological Applications. 2020 Mar;30(2). 

Thomas A, Schulp C. 2019 Greenhouse Gas Storage and Sequestration Function. In Landscape Planning with Ecosystem Services: Theories and Methods for Application in Europe. (pp. 205-219). Springer, Dordrecht. 

Cosby, B.J., Thomas, A., Emmett, B.A., et al. (2019) ERAMMP Year 1 Report 12: ‘Quick Start’ Modelling (Phase 1). Report to Welsh Government (Contract C210/2016/2017)(CEH NEC06297) 

Cagnarini, C., Blyth, E., Emmett, B., Evans, C., Griffiths, R., Keith, A., Jones, L., Lebron, I., McNamara, N., Puissant, J., Reinsch, S., Robinson, D., Rowe. E., Thomas, A., Smart, S., Whitaker, J., Cosby, B. 2019. Zones of influence for soil organic matter dynamics: a conceptual framework for data and models. Global change biology. 

Norton, L.R., Smart, S.M., Maskell, L.C., Henrys, P.A., Wood, C.M., Keith, A.M., Emmett, B.A, Cosby, B.J., Thomas, A., Scholefield, P.A., Greene, S., Morton, R.D., Rowland, C.S.  Identifying effective approaches for monitoring national natural capital for policy use. 2018. Ecosystem Services 30, 98-106

Ignacio Palomo , Louise Willemen, Evangelia Drakou, Benjamin Burkhard , Neville Crossman, Chloe Bellamy ,  Kremena Burkhard ,  C. Sylvie Campagne ,  Anuja Dangol ,  Jonas Franke ,  Sylwia Kulczyk ,  Solen Le Clec'h ,  Dania Abdul Malak ,  Lorena Muñoz ,  Vytautas Narusevicius ,  Sam Ottoy ,  Jennifer Roelens,  Louise Sing ,  Amy Thomas ,  Koenraad Van Meerbeek ,  Peter Verweij.   Practical solutions for bottlenecks in ecosystem services mapping. One Ecosystem. One Ecosystem, 3, p.e20713

Bussi G, Whitehead PG, Thomas AR, Masante D, Jones L, Cosby BJ, Emmett BA, Malham SK, Prudhomme C, Prosser H. Climate and land-use change impact on faecal indicator bacteria in a temperate maritime catchment (the River Conwy, Wales). Journal of Hydrology. 2017 Oct 1;553:248-61.

Maxwell D, Robinson DA, Thomas A, Jackson B, Maskell L, Jones DL, Emmett BA. Potential contribution of soil diversity and abundance metrics to identifying high nature value farmland (HNV). Geoderma. 2017 Nov 1;305:417-32.

Sharps, K., D. Masante, Thomas, A., Jackson, B., Redhead, J., May, L., Prosser, H., Cosby, B., Emmett, B., Jones, L. (2017). "Comparing strengths and weaknesses of three ecosystem services modelling tools in a diverse UK river catchment." Science of The Total Environment 584–585: 118-130.

Emmett, B.A., Cooper, D., Smart, S., Jackson, B., Thomas, A., Cosby, B., Evans, C., Glanville, H., McDonald, J.E., Malham, S.K. and Marshall, M., 2016. Spatial patterns and environmental constraints on ecosystem services at a catchment scale. Science of The Total Environment. 572 pp. 1586–1600

Holland, R.A., Scott, K., Hinton, E.D., Austen, M.C., Barrett, J., Beaumont, N., Blaber-Wegg, T., Brown, G., Carter-Silk, E., Cazenave, P. and Eigenbrod, F., Hiscock, K., Hooper, T., Lovett, A., Papathanasopoulou, E., Smith, P., Thomas, A., Tickner, R., Torres, R., Taylor, G.,  2016. Bridging the gap between energy and the environment. Energy Policy, 92, pp.181-189.

Emmett, B.E. and the GMEP team (2015) Glastir Monitoring & Evaluation Programme. Second Year Annual Report to Welsh Government (Contract reference: C147/2010/11). NERC/Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH Project: NEC04780).

Thomas, A., Bond, A., Hiscock, K. (2013) A multi-criteria based review of models that predict environmental impacts of land use-change for perennial energy crops on water, carbon and nitrogen cycling. GCB Bioenergy 5. pp. 227-242

Thomas, A., Bond, A., Hiscock, K. (2013) A GIS based assessment of bioenergy potential in England within existing energy systems. Biomass and Bioenergy 55. pp. 107-121

Thomas, A., Bond, A., Hiscock, K. (2012) Potential of the daycent model to predict change in greenhouse gas emissions with cessation of tillage for cultivation of perennial energy crops. Agrociencia 16, 3. pp. 33-42