Mr Daniel Sandars
Research Fellow in Operational Research in Natural Resources
Location: Building 42, Cranfield campus
E: daniel.sandars@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 750111 x2742
Environmental Science and Technology
Current activities
The purpose of Daniel Sandars' current work is to inform UK policy on biodiversity and arable agriculture by providing decision analysis methods and related quantified evidence base. The aim is to identify, develop as necessary, and apply methods which develop the linear programming approach to agricultural production planning to include effects on exemplar indicator species of farmland birds and mammals together with the associated decision making behaviour of farmers.
The resulting approach will identify and quantify how farmers respond to changes in the financial, regulatory, climatic and technological environment, especially with respect to initiatives to promote biodiversity. It will be capable of rapid recalculation and easy adaptation to evaluate future, as yet unspecified, choices and changes.
In general he applies a variety of modelling and operational research techniques, which often require considerable methodological innovation to succeed (be fit for purpose).
These include:
- the representation of nutrient cycles within SFARMMOD, an optimising, typically profit maximising, linear programme of whole farm production and land-use planning
- the environmental Life Cycle Assessment technique (ISO 14040-14043) applied to structurally complex agricultural commodity production (e.g. the stratification of the UK sheep industry), using a set of linear equalities to tie the various components together in rational proportions
- the conversion of rules based non-foliar wheat diseases treatment procedures into continuous quantitative models of yield loss depending on situation by using an iterative analysis of the decision making behaviour of experts when asked to respond to intermediate cases.
Background
Daniel Sandars' 17 year career began in the vocational side of arable and livestock agriculture, in the UK and Europe, culminating in the management of a dairy unit in Kent - 1993. That was followed by 12 months as a biomass renewable energy modeller and analyst in Hertfordshire. The following 10 years was spent at the Silsoe Research Institute modelling the financial and environmental aspects of agricultural decisions, a role which has evolved into his current role at Cranfield University.
His professional post-nominals are CEnv MIAgrM, MIAgrE, and AFORS. His additional professional roles include being a board member of the EURO-working group on Operational Research in Agriculture and Forestry Management (EWG-ORAFM), secretary to the Operational Research Society's special interest group on Agriculture and Natural Resources, and a co-ordinator of Cranfield's intra-university modelling, optimisation, and analysis research forum.
