Dr. Kasia Sawicka

My research interests and current focus are spatial modelling of biogeochemistry and ecosystem change in response to climate change and pollution; spatial uncertainty propagation analysis; mapping and modelling critical loads, critical levels and pollutant deposition for the UK; development of the MADOC model.  My previous research at the University of Edinburgh was focused on understanding global climate change impacts on crop growth in tropics using model-data fusion approaches and Earth Observations. I developed a diagnostic system for sugarcane under water stress that can identify processes responsible for the plant response to drough, inform about the crop yield gap attributable to drought stress, inter-annual variation in yield gaps, and quantify benefits to yield of targeted irrigation and soil improvements. Prior to that I was a Marie-Curie Fellow at the Wageningen University focusing on the uncertainty propagation in spatial environmental modelling, i.e. where the model inputs or parameters are spatially distributed. I have developed an R package for spatial uncertainty propagation analysis ('spup') and its application to the study cases, such as modelling risk of metaldehyde pollution in drinking water sources for one of the British water management companies or modelling trace gas emissions at the catchment scale. During my PhD I investigated dissolved organic carbon (DOC) dynamics in soil water and its fate in the future by extensive statistical analysis of British long-term monitoring data and contributing to the development of a biogeochemical process-based model MADOC for predicting long-term trends of DOC.