Contact Dr John Beale
Areas of expertise
- Monitoring and Environmental Informatics
- Soil
Background
I have arrived at soil science by a very odd route – I began my career as an experimental physicist in a defence laboratory. But this is where I was first exposed to remote sensing, using thermal imaging and passive millimetre waves, and have been fascinated by satellite imagery, aerial photography and map making ever since. The opportunity to study for an MSc in Geographical Information Management at Cranfield was a great vehicle to indulge my interests and test the water for a return to academic life. Through the team at Cranfield and my thesis project on cauliflowers, I became interested in precision agriculture and soils. However, I then spent several years as an innovation consultant specialising in engineering and transport (railways, industrial heritage and sailing are other hobbies of mine). The STARS CDT project was a great opportunity for me to get stuck in to a challenge that plays to my interests. My PhD was on estimating soil moisture using C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) from satellite with particular focus on field scale capabilities for agriculture, and making use of the COSMOS-UK network of soil moisture sensors to validate the performance.
Current activities
Knowledge of soil moisture is an important import into climate, meteorological and hydrological models and has important applications in agriculture, management of natural resources and predicting and preventing flooding. Field-scale measurements are potentially possible, despite many challenges, through Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) from satellite. The CEH’s COsmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System (COSMOS-UK network) can match the SAR spatial and temporal scales to validate, calibrate or compliment the SAR product with ground data. I will be investigating the capabilities and synergies of SAR and COSMOS, exploiting novel, statistical models based on change point detection and other techniques. I am trying to overcome the problems associated with vegetation cover and soil texture that limit the ability of SAR to reliably measure soil moisture, and to understand the relationship between a surface measurement and one at greater depth, and whether that is a limiting factor to the usefulness of the data. My postdoctoral work has included remote sensing of vegetation dynamics along Himalayan rivers (SEELARIS project) and I am contributing to NERC's Constructing a Digital Environment (CDE) project.
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Beale J, Grabowski RC, Lokidor PL, Vercruysse K & Simms DM (2022) Vegetation cover dynamics along two Himalayan rivers: drivers and implications of change, Science of the Total Environment, 849 (November) Article No. 157826.
- Grabowski RC, Vercruysse K, Holman I, Azhoni A, Bala B, Shankar V, Beale J, Mukate S, Poddar A, Peng J & Meersmans J (2022) The land-river interface: a conceptual framework of environmental process interactions to support sustainable development, Sustainability Science, Available online 13 May 2022.
- Beale JE, Waine TW, Corstanje R & Evans JG (2021) A method to assess the performance of SAR-derived surface soil moisture products, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 14 4504-4516. Dataset/s: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.13028123
- Ferracci V, Bolas CG, Freshwater RA, Staniaszek Z, King T, Jaars K, Otu-Larbi F, Beale JE, Malhi Y, Waine TW, Jones RL, Ashworth K & Harris NRP (2020) Continuous isoprene measurements in a UK temperate forest for a whole growing season: effects of drought stress during the 2018 heatwave, Geophysical Research Letters, 47 (15) Article No. e2020GL088885.
- Salmon N, Mason I, Price S & Beale J (2009) Measurements of aerospace materials and their interpretation for non-destructive testing, Proceedings of SPIE, 7485 Article No. 74850C.
- Salmon N, Beale J, Hayward S, Hall P, Macpherson R, Metcalfe R & Harvey A (2008) Compact and light-weight digital beam-forming passive millimetre imagers, Proceedings of SPIE, 7117 Article No. 711709.
- Salmon N, Beale J, Parkinson J, Hayward S, Hall P, MacPherson R, Lewis R & Harvey A (2007) Digital beam-forming for passive millimetre wave security imaging, IET Seminar Digest, 2007 (11961).
- Salmon N, Beale J, Parkinson J, Hayward S, Hall P, Macpherson R, Lewis R & Harvey A (2007) Passive millimetre wave digital beam-forming security imaging, Proceedings of SPIE, 6739 Article No. 67390S.
- Anderton R, Appleby R, Beale J, Coward P & Price S (2006) Security scanning at 94GHz, Proceedings of SPIE, 6211 Article No. 62110C.
- Salmon N, Beale J, Beard A, Dean M, Hayward S, Hickling P, Chiw S, Ghafouri-Shiraz H, Hall P, Macpherson R, Lewis R, Lettington A & Dunn D (2005) An all electronic passive millimetre wave imaging system, Proceedings of SPIE, 5789 (2) 11-15.
- Huckridge D, Ashley T, Beale J, Blenkinsop I, Bowen G, Lees D, Phillips T & Price R (2004) Albion camera - A high performance infrared imaging system, Proceedings of SPIE, 5406 (1) 163-169.
- Ashley T, Ballingall R, Beale J, Blenkinsop I, Burke T, Firkins J, Hall D, Hipwood L, Hollier C, Knowles P, Lees D, Little J & Shaw C (2002) Large format MWIR focal plane arrays, Proceedings of SPIE, 4820 (1) 400-405.
Conference Papers
- Beale J, Waine T, Corstanje R & Evans J (2021) Improved soil moisture estimation with Sentinel-1 for arable land at the field scale. In: EGU General Assembly, 2021, Virtual Event, 19-30 April 2021.
- Harvey A, Beale J, Greenaway A, Hanlon T & Williams J (2000) Technology options for imaging spectrometry. In: Imaging Spectrometry VI: International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology, San Diego, CA, 31 July - 2 August 2000.
