Contact Dr John Beale
Areas of expertise
- Monitoring and Environmental Informatics
- Sensor Technologies
- Soil
Background
Dr John Beale is a remote sensing and GIS specialist with a background in physics. After graduating from Cambridge University in 1989, John's first career was in defence research, joining what was then the Admiralty Research Establishment, and later moving to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (currently now QinetiQ) at Malvern, Worcestershire, remaining their for twenty years. During this period he worked on the design and application of electro-optics including infrared signature control, the design of infrared, hyperspectral, ultraviolet and passive millimetre wave sensors and sensor systems and spent the last few years as a seior project manager on international collaborative projects.
In 2010 John decided to change his career path and took Geographical Information Management MSc at Cranfield University, where he developed an interest in GIS and satellite remote sensing for agricultural and natural resources applications, which he was to return to later. Meanswhile John spent several years working as an innovation consultant for IXC-UK Ltd and the Rail Alliance, where his role focussed on being an intermediary between clients and technology providers, and was part of a team assessimng applications for the Queen's Award for Innovation.
In 2017 John returned to Cranfield University to fulfil an ambition pursue his interest in remote sensing by completing a PhD (in 2021) 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. This was part of the STARS CDT through which John receive formal training in soil science.
Research opportunities
Since 2021 Dr John Beale has been involved in a range of remote sensing projects for the management of agriculture and natural resources, whilst continuing his interest in the remote sensing of soil moisture. 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. John's particular focus is to overcome the problems associated with vegetation cover and soil texture that limit the ability of SAR to reliably measure soil moisture at field scale, 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.
Current activities
Recent projects include the remote sensing of vegetation dynamics along Himalayan rivers (SEELARIS project) using Landsat data, tracking of beet Virus Yellows (VY) diseases using drone surveillance, and monitoring the establishment of Miscanthus plants using drone imagery and AI models. John was also a key member of the team delivering NERC's Constructing a Digital Environment (CDE) project.
Clients
- Terravesta Energy Limited
- Natural Environment Research Council
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Grabowski RC, Vercruysse K, Holman IP, Azhoni A, Bala B, .... (2022). The land-river interface: a conceptual framework of environmental process interactions to support sustainable development. Sustainability Science, 17(4)
- 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)
- Beale J & Waine T. (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
- Ferracci V, Bolas CG, Freshwater RA, Staniaszek Z, King T, .... (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)
- Beale J, Waine T, Corstanje R & Evans J. (2020). A performance assessment method for SAR satellite-derived surface soil moisture data using a soil-water balance model, meteorological observations, and soil pedotransfer functions..