Dr Mick Whelan
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science
Location: Building 42, Cranfield campus
E: m.j.whelan@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 750111 x2975
Environmental Science and Technology
Current activities
Dr Mick Whelan’s research has three main themes:
1. Mathematical modelling of environmental systems with an emphasis on developing conceptually simple approaches which capture the essential features of system behaviour and which are useful for informing operational and strategic decision making. Simple approaches are well suited for explicit description of system variability and parameter uncertainty using Monte Carlo simulation.
2. The environmental risk assessment of chemicals with particular interest in understanding the fate of chemicals emitted to surface waters via the “down-the-drain” pathway.
3. Nutrient cycling in soil and water with particular interest in nitrogen and phosphorus transfers from agricultural land to ground and surface waters. Current projects include attempting to understand the factors governing high phosphate concentrations in ground water in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and consequent impacts on groundwater-dependent surface waters (SNIFFER) and attempting to improve understanding of chemical exchanges between bed sediments and the water column in rivers.
His teaching covers various aspects of water quality and the partitioning fate and transport of chemicals in the environment.
Clients
- NERC
- SNIFFER
- Unilever.
Background
Dr Mick Whelan joined Cranfield University in May 2007 as a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, after working for five years in environmental modelling and risk assessment of chemicals for Unilever – a large multi-national consumer goods company. Before joining Unilever, he worked in various university departments including three years at the Institute of Agricultural Hydraulics in Milan and three years as a lecturer in hydrology at the University of Stirling. He has over 15 years’ post-graduate experience in environmental science which has focussed, in recent years, on the environmental fate and transport of organic chemicals. He has worked extensively on the construction and application of numerical models of chemical fate in different environmental compartments. He has also conducted monitoring work – tracking the fate of down-the-drain chemicals such as linear alkyl benzene sulphonate in rivers – both in Italy and in southeast Asia. This work has shown that the concentration and behaviour of these chemicals in many surface waters are predictable, provided that good information is available about loads, time-of-travel and in-stream dilution. Dr Mick Whelan has a BSc in Geography and a PhD in Applied Hydrology from the University of Leeds.
