Contact Dr Jacqueline Hannam
- Tel: +44 (0) 1234 754586
- Email: j.a.hannam@cranfield.ac.uk
- Twitter: @Dirt_Science
- ORCID
- Google Scholar
Areas of expertise
- Digital Agriculture
- Monitoring and Environmental Informatics
- Natural Capital
- Soil
- Soil Resources
- Sustainable Land Systems
Background
Jack currently leads the Soil Informatics group and the LandIS team at Cranfield University, who are responsible for the national soil data for England and Wales https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/themes/environment-and-agrifood/landis. She joined Cranfield University in 2004 as a Research Officer in Soil Systems. She previously worked at ETH Zurich and the University of Liverpool on international projects related to environmental magnetism.
Jack’s research centres on soil data, digital soil mapping and soil health. Her work on digital soil mapping fuses novel machine learning approaches with expert and local knowledge to develop new predictions of soil properties at national scales. Work on predictive mapping of land capability (http://lle.gov.wales/map/alc2) has identified how climate change could affect the national capability of land for agriculture. The outputs have been used for decision making by the Welsh Government and Defra in national and local policies. She has developed field scale applications of regenerative agriculture, working closely with farmers and growers to use cover crops to improve soil health. She is interested in how different forms of soil data (e.g. spectroscopy or citizen-sourced data) can be used to inform local sustainable soil management and also feed into national monitoring schemes.
She is President-Elect of the British Society of Soil Science (BSSS) and vice chair of the International Union of Soil Science (IUSS) Division 1: Soil in Space and Time. She is an Associate Editor for the journals Soil Use and Management and SOIL. She is on the scientific committee for the Land Use, Land Use Change to Forestry sector for the UK GHG emission inventory. She is a passionate science communicator and has been interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Sky News, BBC World and BBC Countryfile. She founded Soapbox Science in Milton Keynes in 2015, a public outreach platform promoting women in science. She is also a member of Cranfield University's Community and Public Engagement working group.
She leads the soil systems module on the Agrifood MSc programme and has successfully supervised and examined numerous PhD and MSc students. She has developed and delivered advanced NERC training courses in soil systems for early career researchers and bespoke short courses for environmental science professionals.
Research opportunities
I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas: soil data and mapping; sensor technologies, digital soil mapping and modelling; conservation agriculture and soil health; participatory approaches to soil heath with diverse stakeholders; urban soil systems.
Current activities
Soil data and digital soil mapping: Current work includes developing Bayesian approaches for soil property estimation at national scales (LandIS). She is leading an EU project to develop regional-scale harmonised soil data for the Danube Basin (Joint Research Centre with ISRIC). With Cranfield colleagues she is developing an updated map of peat soils in Wales to provide new estimates of soil carbon stock and GHG emissions (Welsh Government). Land capability approaches are also being applied in an ESRC project to determine how soil functions are impacted by land use change resulting from food and nutrition scenarios emerging from the UK response to COVID-19 and Brexit (ES/V004433/1).
Soil health and regenerative agriculture: Continued work on cover crops will identify if they play a part in developing resilience to climate change (BBSRC FoodBioSystem PhD with University of Reading). She has also recently published an opinion piece on soil health and biological indicators.
Clients
NERCESRC
Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
Forestry Commission
Welsh Government
Dstl
Gs Growers
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Rivington M, King R, Duckett D, Iannetta P, Benton TG, Burgess PJ, Hawes C, Wellesley L, Polhill JG, Aitkenhead M, Lozada‐Ellison LM, Begg G, Williams AG, Newton A, Lorenzo‐Arribas A, Neilson R, Watts C, Harris J, Loades K, Stewart D, Wardell‐Johnson D, Gandossi G, Udugbezi E, Hannam JA & Keay C (2021) UK food and nutrition security during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Nutrition Bulletin, 46 (1) 88-97.
- Pawlett M, Hannam JA & Knox JW (2021) Redefining soil health, Microbiology, 167 (1) Article No. 001030.
- Breure TS, Milne AE, Webster R, Haefele SM, Hannam JA, Moreno-Rojas S & Corstanje R (2021) Predicting the growth of lettuce from soil infrared reflectance spectra: the potential for crop management, Precision Agriculture, 22 (1, February 2021) 226-248.
- Storr T, Simmons RW & Hannam JA (2020) Using frost sensitive cover crops for timely nitrogen mineralization and soil moisture management, Soil Use and Management, Available online 04 July 2020. Dataset/s: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.7660817
- Gabarron-Galeote MA, Hannam JA, Mayr T & Jarvis PJ (2019) BEETSOIL: a decision support tool for forecasting the impact of soil conditions on sugar beet harvest, Soil and Tillage Research, 191 (August) 131-141. Dataset/s: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.8025401
- Storr T, Simmons RW & Hannam JA (2019) A UK survey of the use and management of cover crops, Annals of Applied Biology, 174 (2) 179-189. Dataset/s: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.7314278
- Hallett SH, Sakrabani R, Keay CA & Hannam JA (2017) Developments in land information systems: examples demonstrating land resource management capabilities and options, Soil Use and Management, 33 (4) 514-529.
- Hannam J (2017) S.O.S. - Save our soil today to meet the food challenges of tomorrow, Environmental Scientist, 26 (1) 25-31.
- Preetz H, Igel J, Hannam JA & Stadler S (2017) Relationship between magnetic properties and reddening of tropical soils as indicators of weathering, Geoderma, 303 (October) 143-149.
- Taalab K, Corstanje R, Zawadzka J, Mayr T, Whelan MJ, Hannam JA & Creamer R (2015) On the application of Bayesian Networks in Digital Soil Mapping, Geoderma, 259-260 (December) 134-148.
- Simo I, Schulte RPO, Corstanje R, Hannam J & and Creamer RE (2015) Validating digital soil maps using soil taxonomic distance: A case study of Ireland., Geoderma Regional, 5 188-197.
- Keay CA, Jones RJA, Hannam J & Barrie I (2014) The implications of a changing climate on agricultural land classification in England and Wales, Journal of Agricultural Science, 152 (1) 23-37.
- Cavazzi S, Corstanje R, Mayr T, Hannam J & Fealy R (2013) Are fine resolution digital elevation models always the best choice in digital soil mapping?, Geoderma, 195-196 111-121.
- Hollis JM, Hannam J & Bellamy PH (2011) Empirically-derived pedotransfer functions for predicting bulk density in European soils, European Journal of Soil Science, 63 (1) 96-109.
- Boyle JF, Dearing JA, Blundell A & Hannam JA (2010) Testing competing hypotheses for soil magnetic susceptibility using a new chemical kinetic model, Geology, 38 (12) 1059-1062.
- Blundell A, Hannam JA, Dearing JA & Boyle JF (2009) Detecting atmospheric pollution in surface soils using magnetic measurements: A reappraisal using an England and Wales database, Environmental Pollution, 157 (10) 2878-2890.
- Blundell A, Dearing JA, Boyle JF & Hannam JA (2009) Controlling factors for the spatial variability of soil magnetic properties across England and Wales, Earth-Science Reviews, 95 (3-4) 158-188.
- Blundell A, Dearing J A, Boyle J F & Hannam J A (2009) Controlling factors for the spatial variability of soil magnetic susceptibility across England and Wales, Earth-Science Reviews, 95 (3-4) 158-188.
- Hannam JA & Dearing JA (2008) Mapping soil magnetic properties in Bosnia and Herzegovina for landmine clearance operations, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 274 (3-4) 285-294.
- Spassov S, Egli R, Heller F, Nourgaliev DK & Hannam JA (2004) Magnetic quantification of urban pollution sources in atmospheric particulate matter., Geophysical Journal International, 159 (2) 555-564.
- Harvey AM, Foster GC, Hannam JA & Mather A E (2003) The Tabernas alluvial fan and lake system, southeast Spain: Application of mineral magnetic and pedogenic iron oxide analyses towards clarifying the Quaternary sediment sequences, Geomorphology, 50 (1-3) 151-171.
- Dearing JA, Hannam JA, Anderson AE & Wellington EMH (2001) Magnetic, geochemical and DNA properties of highly magnetic soils in England., Geophysical Journal International, 144 (1) 183-196.
Conference Papers
- Storr T, Simmons RW & Hannam JA (2018) Soil water and available nitrogen during cover crop growth. In: Soil Improvement: Impact of Management Practices on Soil Function and Quality, 2018, Cambridge, 16 October 2018.
- Storr T, Simmons R & Hannam J (2017) The use of cover crops in the UK: a survey. In: Sustainable Intensification, 2017, Harpenden, 28-30 November 2017.
- Storr T, Simmons RW & Hannam JA (2017) Do cover crops give short term benefits for soil health?. In: Sustainable Intensification, 2017, Harpenden, 28-30 November 2017.
- Hannam JA, Van Dam RL & Harmon RS (2009) A synthesis of current knowledge and future directions for soil magnetism research. In: SPIE Defense and Security Symposium, Orlando, Florida, 13 April 2009.
- Hannam JA & Dearing JA (2006) Modeling soil magnetic susceptibility and frequency dependent susceptibility to aid landmine clearance. In: SPIE Defense and Security Symposium, Florida, USA, 17 April 2006.
Books
- Simo I, Constanje R, Fealy R, Hallett SH, Hannam J, Holden N, Jahns G, Jones B, Massey P, Mayr T, McDonald E, Reidy B, Schulte R, Sills P, Spaargaren O, Zawadka J & Creamer RE (2014) Mapping Soils in Ireland. In: GlobalSoilMap: Basis of the global spatial soil information system, CRC Press.
- Keay CA & Hannam JA (2013) Soil Data from the United Kingdom (England and Wales). In: European HYdropedological Data Inventory (EU-HYDI). Weynands M, Montanarella L, Toth G (ed.), Luxembourg: European Union, p. 111-115, ed. JRC 81129.
- Hannam JA, Hollis JM & Jones RJA (2007) SPADE2: The soil profile analytical database for Europe. In: Status and prospect of soil information in south-eastern Europe: soil databases, projects and applications, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.