Contact Dr Daniel Evans
- Email: Daniel.L.Evans@cranfield.ac.uk
- Twitter: @DanEvansol
- ORCID
- Google Scholar
- ResearchGate
Areas of expertise
- Soil
- Sustainable Land Systems
Background
Dan’s passion
for soils research germinated in 2012 when he studied mobile debris lobes in
Alaska during a Royal Geographical Society Scholarship. Following his return,
he obtained a first class degree in Physical Geography at the Royal Holloway,
with prize-winning research on root architecture and soil erodibility. During
his PhD at Lancaster University, he conducted the first isotopic measurements
of UK arable soil formation, and produced the first globally-relevant estimates of soil
lifespans. His postdoctoral work on the Global Food Security programme's Rurban Revolution project investigated urban ecosystem services. Dan is Early Career Researcher (ECR) Representative for the
EGU’s Soils division, and former National ECR Officer for the British Society of Soil
Science. In 2019, he co-hosted HRH The Duke of Gloucester at the BSSS ECR
conference. Dan’s also passionate about science communication. He was the
inaugural speaker at the first Royal Holloway TEDx conference, and recently
curated a sustainable urban soils exhibition at the UEA. His research has
featured in The Conversation, on BBC
Radio 4’s Farming Today, Sky News, and Farmer’s Weekly. Following his PhD, Dan became the Legacy Fellow for the NERC and BBSRC-funded 'Soils Training and Research Studentship' (STARS) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT).
Research opportunities
Dan holds a 75th Anniversary Research Fellowship as a Soil Scientist at Cranfield University's Soil and Agrifood Institute. I lead both fundamental and applied research, principally focusing on soil formation, and the parent materials from which soil is formed. The basis of this work takes place at the interface between soil and weathered bedrock called saprolite. This zone represents a ‘final frontier’ at the bottom of many soil profiles, and one which is likely to become more critical as soils around the world continue to erode to bedrock. However, Dan also studies soil formation across a wide variety of environmental domains including natural ‘pristine’ ecosystems, agricultural landscapes, and urban spaces.
Dan's research programme comprises three core components:
Interactions between parent materials and soils: How do the biological, chemical, and physical properties of parent materials differ from those of soil? What processes take place across the boundary between soils and underlying parent materials? To what extent can parent materials support the delivery of soil ecosystem services?
Threats to soil parent materials: To what extent is the stock, health, and functioning of soil parent material at threat from local perturbations and global grand challenges? How resilient are soil parent materials to these perturbations? How can we protect soil parent materials to safeguard tomorrow's soils?
Bioengineering soil parent materials to accelerate soil formation: Can we identify smart, efficient, and next-generation techniques to bioengineer soil parent materials to enhance rates of soil formation? Can plants be used to accelerate soil formation and thicken soil profiles? How can we form a functioning soil 'from scratch' in urban spaces?
Current activities
Contaminants in saprolite: an overlooked hotspot of environmental concern | October 2022 to March 2026 | P.I.
A NERC DTP studentship which will investigate the storage of emerging contaminants (e.g., microplastics, pharmaceuticals) in the saprolite zone under soil profiles, and their remobilization back into the soil profile during soil formation processes.
Petrogenic carbon at the soil-bedrock interface | March 2022 to March 2024 | P.I.
A Royal Society International Exchange grant with ETH Zurich investigating the release of petrogenic (rock-derived) carbon from bedrock to soils during soil formation processes. This project will deliver preliminary findings on the concentrations of rock-derived carbon entering the soil system, and the priming potential of this carbon at the soil-bedrock interface. Work will take place on soils developing in glacial forelands across the Swiss Alps, and agroecosystems over carbon-rich rocks (e.g., shales) in the UK.
The role of saprolite in stabilizing soil organic carbon in critically shallow soils | October 2020 to September 2023 | P.I.
An investigation into the potential of weathered bedrock underlying rapidly eroding shallow soils to store and stabilize organic carbon. In particular, this project will explore (i) the factors that affect carbon storage and stabilization mechanisms at the soil-saprolite interface, (ii) the resilience of these mechanisms to perturbation, and (iii) solutions to boost ecosystem service delivery on bare saprolite.
Modelling, optimizing, and identifying novel sites for urban food production | January to September 2022 | P.I.
A STFC Food Network funded project that aims to develop a decision-making platform to identify the most effective vacant urban spaces for sustainable, resilient, nutritious food growing. As part of this research, soils in vacant urban spaces within Newcastle, UK, will be studied to analyze their suitability for crop growth.
Saprolite erosion and the fate of heavy metals: pioneering UAV-SfM as a community mapping tool | December 2020 to July 2021 | P.I.
A GCRF
project, in collaboration with Agronomic Institute of Campinas, Brazil, and the
National Institute for Space Research, that aimed to test the use of UAV-SfM to detect, map, and measure saprolite erosion in order to estimate the diffuse pollution of heavy metals.
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Batista PV, Evans DL, Cândido BM & Fiener P (2023) Does soil thinning change soil erodibility? An exploration of long-term erosion feedback systems, Soil, 9 (1) 71-88.
- Vis BN, Evans DL & Graham E (2023) Engagement with urban soils part II: starting points for sustainable urban planning guidelines derived from Maya soil connectivity, Land, 12 (4) Article No. 891.
- Vis BN, Evans DL & Graham E (2023) Engagement with urban soils part I: applying Maya soil connectivity practices to intergenerational planning for urban sustainability, Land, 12 (4) Article No. 892.
- Harris JA, Evans DL & Mooney SJ (2022) A new theory for soil health [Opinion], European Journal of Soil Science, 73 (4) Article No. e1329.
- Payen FT, Evans DL, Falagán N, Hardman CA, Kourmpetli S, Liu L, Marshall R, Mead BR & Davies JAC (2022) How much food can we grow in urban areas? Food production and crop yields of urban agriculture: a meta-analysis, Earth's Future, 10 (8) Article No. e2022EF002748.
- Harris JA, Evans DL & Mooney SJ (2022) A response to Bouma ‘feeding existing expertise into a possibly “new” theory for soil health?’ [Letter to the Editor], European Journal of Soil Science, 73 (6) Article No. e13324.
- Evans DL (2022) 'Only One Earth' – Celebrating soil science on World Environment Day 2022 [Editorial], European Journal of Soil Science, 73 (4) Article No. e13277.
- Tye AM, Evans DL, Lee JR & Robinson DA (2022) The role of post UK-LGM erosion processes in the long-term storage of buried organic C across Great Britain – a ‘first order' assessment, Earth-Science Reviews, 232 (September) Article No. 104126.
- Evans DL, Falagán N, Hardman CA, Kourmpetli S, Liu L, Mead BR & Davies JAC (2022) Ecosystem service delivery by urban agriculture and green infrastructure – a systematic review, Ecosystem Services, 54 (April) Article No. 101405.
- Walsh LE, Mead BR, Hardman CA, Evans D, Liu L, Falagán N, Kourmpetli S & Davies J (2022) Potential of urban green spaces for supporting horticultural production: a national scale analysis, Environmental Research Letters, 17 (1) Article No. 014052.
- Evans DL, Janes-Bassett V, Borrelli P, Chenue C, Ferreira CSS, Griffiths RI, Kalantari Z, Keesstra S, Lal R, Panagos P, Robinson DA, Seifollahi-Aghmiuni S, Smith P, Steenhuis TS, Thomas A & Visser SM (2022) Sustainable futures over the next decade are rooted in soil science, European Journal of Soil Science, 73 (1) Article No. e13145.
- Cimpoiasu MO, Dowdeswell‐Downey E, Evans DL, McCloskey CS, Rose LS & Sayer EJ (2021) Contributions and future priorities for soil science: comparing perspectives from scientists and stakeholders, European Journal of Soil Science, 72 (6) 2538-2557.
- Haygarth PM, Lawrenson O, Mezeli M, Sayer EJ, McCloskey CS, Evans DL, Kirk GJD, Tye AM, Chadwick DR, McGrath SP, Mooney SJ, Paterson E, Robinson DA & Jones DL (2021) On pedagogy of a Soil Science Centre for Doctoral Training, European Journal of Soil Science, 72 (6) 2320-2329.
- Evans DL, Quinton JN, Tye AM, Rodés Á, Rushton JC, Davies JAC & Mudd SM (2021) How the composition of sandstone matrices affects rates of soil formation, Geoderma, 401 (November) Article No. 115337.
- Evans DL, Vis BN, Dunning NP, Graham E & Isendahl C (2021) Buried solutions: How Maya urban life substantiates soil connectivity, Geoderma, 387 (April) Article No. 114925.
- Portell X, Sauzet O, Balseiro-Romero M, Benard P, Cardinael R, Couradeau E, Danra DD, Evans DL, Fry EL, Hammer EC, Mamba D, Merino-Martín L, Mueller CW, Paradelo M, Rees F, Rossi L, Schmidt H, Schnee LS, Védère C & Vidal A (2021) Bypass and hyperbole in soil science: a perspective from the next generation of soil scientists, European Journal of Soil Science, 72 (1) 31-34.
- Rodes A & Evans DL (2020) Cosmogenic soil production rate calculator, MethodsX, 7 Article No. 100753.
- Evans DL, Rodes A & Tye AM (2020) The sensitivity of cosmogenic radionuclide analysis to soil bulk density: Implications for soil formation rates, European Journal of Soil Science, Available online 05 May 2020 (1).
- Evans DL, Quinton JN, Davies JAC, Zhao J & Govers G (2020) Soil lifespans and how they can be extended by land use and management change, Environmental Research Letters, 15 (9) Article No. 0940b2.
- Evans DL, Quinton JN, Tye AM, Rodes A, Davies JAC, Mudd, SM, Quine & TA (2019) Arable soil formation and erosion: a hillslope-based cosmogenic nuclide study in the United Kingdom, Soil, 5 (2) 253-263.
- Barthel S, Isendahl C, Vis BN, Drescher A, Evans DL & Timmeren AV (2019) Global urbanization and food production in direct competition for land: Leverage places to mitigate impacts on SDG2 and on the Earth System, The Anthropocene Review, 6 (1-2) 71-97.
Books
- Graham E, Evans DL & Lindsay D (2020) The waste of time. In: The Temporalities of Waste: Out of Sight, Out of Time, Routledge, p. 151-166.