Geoenvironmental Response to Climate Change

Climate change means increasingly hotter and dryer summers and warmer and wetter winters. This will cause physical damage to the top few metres of ground. Higher temperatures will cause the ground temperature to increase, hence causing the soil surface to crack and also to lose moisture, causing upward capillary suction of water from depth. Increased flooding will mean that the rainwater will not have time to soak locally into the ground and will hence spread horizontally. In addition, there will be a seasonal rise in groundwater level.

This will have a significant impact in a number of different areas which will require different adaptation strategies. The first is the impact on landfilled areas and contaminated ground remediated by containment, stabilisation/solidification or cover systems. The above impacts of climate change will increase the volatility and mobility of some contaminants and will increase the risk of exposure of contaminated material and of the spreading of contaminants with flood water. Seasonable changes in groundwater level could also bring clean groundwater in contact with ground contaminants.

The second is the impact on any shallow ground contamination which has not been treated and this includes the many untreated brownfield sites around the country, spillage of underground storage tanks or contamination which has been placed in unengineered excavations, which includes for example carcasses of foot-and-mouth diseased animals and the rendered material or ash resulting from the rendering or incineration of the carcasses.

The third is the impact on ground contamination caused by changes in agricultural practices. Hotter and dryer summers will increase the rate of decomposition of organic matter, resulting in significant release of carbon dioxide. They will also cause the soil to crack and fissure and will cause a more rapid and direct movement of water and solutes from the soil surface to permeable substrata. This will increase the possibility of nutrients and pesticide losses and pollution of groundwater and surface water. When animal manure or sewage sludge are applied to land, there will be a greater risk of organic contamination, nitrates and micro-organisms reaching aquifers. In addition, anticipated climate changes could cause weeds to evolve quicker hence requiring more usage of herbicides or the development of new and varied forms of herbicides which will increase the risk of increased contamination of surface water and groundwater.

Work is being carried out into the experimental modelling of the above areas in an attempt to quantify the impact of climate change on those systems and to assess different adaptation strategies.

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Other environmentally related projects:

Remediation of Brownfield sites

Waste minimisation and re-use

Treatment of contaminated land with in-ground barriers

Geoenvironmental sustainability