Areas of expertise
- Environmental Policy
- Monitoring and Environmental Informatics
- Natural Capital
- Water Science and Engineering
Background
Dr Rivas Casado is recognised as a leading expert in the use of UAVs as a data acquisition platform to improve
flood risk management in the UK and internationally. She is a Reader in Environmental Systems Engineering at Cranfield University. Her academic career has been built around the development of systems engineering solutions for the design of robust environmental monitoring strategies. Monica's research has been funded by EPSRC, NERC, BEIS, the Environment Agency and a vast range of industrial sponsors. Monica leads Cranfield's Environment Programme, a well-established educational programme comprising five distinct MSc courses.
Monica has an MSc in Environmental Water Management and a PhD in applied geostatistics from Cranfield. She is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Chartered Water and Environmental Manager (C.WEM), Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), a Chartered Scientist (CSci), a Chartered Forestry Engineer, a Fellow member of CIWEM (FCIWEM) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She holds a Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in teaching and learning and a National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) qualification. Monica is a fully qualified RPQs (drone) pilot.
Current activities
Monica is currently leading UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and industry funded projects on systems engineering solutions for robust environmental monitoring. This includes the use of drones for marine ingress detection near coastal nuclear power plants (EPSRC/EDF Energy), the development of tools to better respond to climate disasters in Africa (EPSRC/Belmont), the combined use of drones and artificial intelligence to better identify the impacts of flooding to infrastructure (EPSRC/Atkins) and the use of drones to quantify greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment plants. She closely works with the insurance and re-insurance (Flood Re) sector on the development of data collection and management strategies for increased urban flood resilience. Further research activity includes underwater vehicles for coral reef habitat identification and ecosystem service quantification and their application for the recovery of the MV Wakashio oil spill in Mauritius (July 2020; EPSRC/Reef Conservation Mauritius).
Previously, she has led research activity on drones for flood and catastrophe extent mapping and damage assessment (NERC/EPSRC), autonomous on-water vehicles for robust hydromorphological characterisation (EPSRC) and floodplain forest restoration monitoring (EPSRC). She was the Cranfield lead for the Building Resilience Into Risk Management (BRIM) EPSRC Grand-Challenge network (2015-2019). She has successfully contributed and delivered UKRI research on ecosystem services science (EnergyScapes, NERC) and collaborated with a vast array of user organisations on: (i) the design of biodiversity monitoring programmes within Integrated Biodiversity Delivery Areas, (ii) the quantification of the effect of forest management practices on soil carbon sequestration and (iii) the assessment of land use dynamics in Europe, amongst others. Her work has been used as a reference for best practice guideline development and policy implementation.
During her 10 month secondment with Government (Department for Business Innovation and Skills, Government for Science, 2014-2015) she advanced knowledge on the opportunities that two of the Eight Great Technologies (Robotics & Autonomous Systems and Big Data) presented to four UK Government Departments (MoD, HO, DEFRA, DH) and one Government Agency (TSB-Innovate) over a period of 10 to 15 years. She directly informed the cross-Whitehall EmTech COI, comprising 29 government organisations and numerous external experts, as part of the HM Government Horizon Scanning Programme. she also informed Cabinet Office on the disruptive potential and benefits of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (UAVs) and Big Data.
Clients
- Flood Re
- Atkins
- Scottish Water
- Severn Trent Water
- Reef Conservation Mauritius
- Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS)
- Government Office for Science (GO-Science)
- Cabinet Office (CO)
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl)
- Electricite de France Group
- Satellite Applications Catapult
- Environment Agency (EA)
- The Douglas Bomford Trust
- The Parks Trust
- Magellium Ltd
- Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
- Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH)
- Yorkshire Water
- Natural England
- Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)
- Forestry Commission
- European Forest Institute
- The Institute of European Environmental Policy
- Joint Research Centre (JRC) European Commission
- Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research (SNIFFER)
- Food Standard Agency (FSA)
- Adas
- Research Councils: NERC, EPSRC, BBSRC and ESRC.
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Ramachandran R, Bajón Fernández Y, Truckell I, Constantino C, Casselden R, Leinster P & Rivas Casado M (2023) Accuracy assessment of surveying strategies for the characterization of microtopographic features that influence surface water flooding, Remote Sensing, 15 (7) Article No. 1912.
- Rivas Casado M, Bellamy P, Leinster P & Burgess PJ (2022) Contrasting changes in soil carbon under first rotation, secondary and historic woodland in England and Wales, Forest Ecology and Management, 505 (February) Article No. 119832.
- Giannitsopoulos ML, Leinster P, Butler D, Smith M & Rivas Casado M (2022) Towards the coordinated and fit-for-purpose deployment of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) for flood risk management in England, AQUA - Water Infrastructure, Ecosystems and Society, 71 (8) 879-895.
- Rocamora I, Wagland ST, Casado MR, Hassard F, Villa R, Peces M, Simpson EW, Fernández O & Bajón-Fernández Y (2022) Managing full-scale dry anaerobic digestion: semi-continuous and batch operation, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, 10 (4) Article No. 108154.
- Mcilwaine B, Rivas Casado M & Waine T (2022) Investigating optimal unmanned aircraft systems flight plans for the detection of marine ingress, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 108 (April) Article No. 102729.
- Muthusamy M, Casado MR, Butler D & Leinster P (2021) Understanding the effects of Digital Elevation Model resolution in urban fluvial flood modelling, Journal of Hydrology, 596 (May) Article No. 126088. Dataset/s: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.12221204
- Fane S, Nocker A, Vale P, Casado MR, Cartmell E, Harris J, Bajón Fernández Y & Tyrrel S (2021) Characterisation and control of the biosolids storage environment: Implications for E. coli dynamics, Science of the Total Environment, 752 (January) Article No. 141705.
- Zawadzka J, Truckell I, Khouakhi A & Rivas Casado M (2021) Detection of flood damage in urban residential areas using object-oriented UAV image analysis coupled with tree-based classifiers, Remote Sensing, 13 (19) Article No. 3913.
- Ibnu Syihab ABM, Verdin PG, Wright RM, Piper AT & Rivas Casado M (2021) Computational fluid dynamics simulations of water flow on a studded upstream eel pass, River Research and Applications, 37 (9) 1279-1293.
- Mcilwaine B & Rivas Casado M (2021) JellyNet: The convolutional neural network jellyfish bloom detector, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 97 (May) Article No. 102279.
- Waterman L, Rivas Casado M, Bergin E & McInally G (2021) A mixed-methods investigation into barriers for sharing geospatial and resilience flood data in the UK, Water (Switzerland), 13 (9) Article No. 1235.
- Sancho Martinez J, Bajon Fernandez Y, Leinster P & Rivas Casado M (2020) Combining unmanned aircraft systems and image processing for wastewater treatment plant asset inspection, Remote Sensing, 12 (9) Article No. 1461.
- Fu G, Meng F, Rivas Casado M & Kalawsky RS (2020) Towards integrated flood risk and resilience management, Water (Switzerland), 12 (6) Article No. 1789.
- Oakley M, Mohun Himmelweit S, Leinster P & Rivas Casado M (2020) Protection motivation theory: a proposed theoretical extension and moving beyond rationality—the case of flooding, Water (Switzerland), 12 (7) Article No. 1848.
- Rivas Casado M & Leinster P (2020) Towards more effective strategies to reduce property level flood risk: standardising the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology (AQUA), 69 (8) 807-818.
- Salmoral G, Rivas Casado M, Muthusamy M, Butler D, Menon PP & Leinster P (2020) Guidelines for the use of unmanned aerial systems in flood emergency response, Water (Switzerland), 12 (2) Article No. 521.
- Fernández-Habas J, Fernández-Rebollo P, Rivas Casado M, García Moreno AM & Abellanas B (2019) Spatio-temporal analysis of oak decline process in open woodlands: A case study in SW Spain, Journal of Environmental Management, 248 (October) Article No. 109308.
- Muthusamy M, Rivas Casado M, Salmoral G, Irvine T & Leinster P (2019) A remote sensing based integrated approach to quantify the impact of fluvial and pluvial flooding in an urban catchment, Remote Sensing, 11 (5) Article No. 577.
- Fane S, Madureira D, Nocker A, Vale P, Rivas Casado M, Wilson A, Bajón-Fernández Y, Harris J, Cartmell E & Tyrrel S (2019) Disruption of cells in biosolids affects E. coli dynamics in storage, H2Open Journal, 2 (1) 101-112.
- Palma M, Magliozzi C, Rivas Casado M, Pantaleo U, Fernandes J, Coro G, Cerrano C & Leinster P (2019) Quantifying coral reef composition of recreational diving sites: a structure from motion approach at seascape scale, Remote Sensing, 11 (24) Article No. 3027.
- Saravi S, Kalawsky R, Joannou D, Rivas-Casado M, Fu G & Meng F (2019) Use of artificial intelligence to improve resilience and preparedness against adverse flood events, Water (Switzerland), 11 (5) Article No. 973.
- Mcilwaine B, Rivas Casado M & Leinster P (2019) Using 1st derivative reflectance signatures within a remote sensing framework to identify macroalgae in marine environments, Remote Sensing, 11 (6) Article No. 704.
- Demetrios J, Kalawsky R, Saravi S, Rivas Casado M, Fu G & Meng F (2019) A model-based engineering methodology and architecture for resilience in systems-of-systems: a case of water supply resilience to flooding, Water (Switzerland), 11 (3) Article No. 496.
- Vandrol J, Rivas Casado M, Blackburn K, Waine TW, Leinster P & Wright R (2018) In-channel 3D models of riverine environments for hydromorphological characterization, Remote Sensing, 10 (7) Article No. 1005.
- Rivas Casado M, Irvine T, Johnson S, Palma M & Leinster P (2018) The use of unmanned aerial vehicles to estimate direct tangible losses to residential properties from flood events: A case study of Cockermouth following the Desmond storm, Remote Sensing, 10 (10) Article No. 1548.
- Palma M, Rivas Casado M, Pantaleo U, Pavoni G, Pica D & Cerrano C (2018) SfM-based method to assess gorgonian forests (Paramuricea clavata (Cnidaria, Octocorallia)), Remote Sensing, 10 (7) Article No. 1154.
- Rivas Casado, Ballesteros R, Ortega JF, Leinster P & Wright R (2017) Towards a transferable UAV-based framework for river hydromorphological characterization, Sensors, 17 (10) Article No. 2210.
- Rivas Casado M, Serafini J, Glen J & Angus A (2017) Monetising the impacts of waste incinerators sited on brownfield land using the hedonic pricing method, Waste Management, 61 (March) 608-616.
- Palma M, Rivas Casado M, Pantaleo U & Cerrano C (2017) High resolution orthomosaics of African coral reefs: a tool for wide-scale benthic monitoring, Remote Sensing, 9 (7) Article No. 705.
- Kriechbaumer T, Blackburn K, Everard N & Rivas Casado M (2016) Acoustic Doppler current profiler measurements near a weir with fish pass: assessing solutions to compass errors, spatial data referencing and spatial flow heterogeneity, Hydrology Research, 47 (3) 591-605.
- Charlton A, Sakrabani R, Tyrrel S, Rivas Casado M, McGrath SP, Crooks B, Cooper P & Campbell CD (2016) Long-term impact of sewage sludge application on soil microbial biomass: an evaluation using meta-analysis, Environmental Pollution, 219 (December) 1021-1035.
- Rivas Casado M, Ballesteros Gonzalez R, Wright R & Bellamy P (2016) Quantifying the effect of aerial Imagery resolution in automated hydromorphological river characterisation, Remote Sensing, 8 (8) Article No. 650.
- Rivas Casado M, Ballesteros Gonzalez R, Kriechbaumer T & Veal A (2015) Automated identification of river hydromorphological features using UAV high resolution aerial imagery., Sensors, 15 (11) 27969-27989.
- Kriechbaumer T, Blackburn K, Breckon TP, Hamilton O & Rivas Casado M (2015) Quantitative evaluation of stereo visual odometry for autonomous vessel localisation in inland waterway sensing applications, Sensors, 15 (2) 31869-31887.
- Rivas Casado M, Mead A, Burgess PJ, Howard DC & Butler SJ (2014) Predicting the impacts of bioenergy production on farmland birds, Science of the Total Environment, 476-477 (April) 7-19.
- Milne AE, Glendining MJ, Bellamy P, Misselbrook T, Gilhespy S, Rivas Casado M, Hulin A, Van Oijen M & Whitmore A (2014) Analysis of uncertainties in the estimates of nitrous oxide and methane emissions in the UK's greenhouse gas inventory for agriculture, Atmospheric Environment, 82 94-105.
- Kriechbaumer T, Angus A, Parsons DJ & Rivas Casado M (2014) An improved wavelet-ARIMA approach for forecasting metal prices, Resources Policy, 39 (March) 32-41.
- Howard DC, Burgess PJ, Butler SJ, Carver SJ, Cockerill T, Coleby AM, Gan G, Goodier CJ, Van der Horst D, Hubacek K, Lord R, Mead A, Rivas Casado M, Wadsworth RA & Scholefield P (2013) Energyscapes: linking the energy system and ecosystem services in real landscapes, Biomass and Bioenergy, 55 17-26.
- Burgess PJ, Rivas Casado M, Gavu J, Mead A, Cockerill T, Lord R, van der Horst D & Howard DC (2012) A framework for reviewing the trade-offs between, renewable energy, food, feed and wood production at a local level, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16 (1) 129-142.
- Angus A, Rivas Casado M & Fitzsimons D (2012) Exploring the usefulness of a simple linear regression model for understanding price movements of selected recycled materials in the UK, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 60 10-19.
- Holman IP, Rivas Casado M, Bloomfield JP & Gurdak JJ (2011) Identifying non-stationary groundwater level response to North Atlantic ocean-atmosphere teleconnection patterns using wavelet coherence, Hydrogeology Journal, 19 (6) 1269-1278.
- Rivas Casado M, Parsons DJ, Magan N, Weightman RM, Battilani P & Pietri A (2010) A short geostatistical study of the three-dimensional spatial structure of fumonisins in stored maize, World Mycotoxin Journal, 3 (1) 95-103.
- Holman IP, Howden NJK, Bellamy P, Willby N, Whelan MJ & Rivas Casado M (2010) An assessment of the risk to surface water ecosystems of groundwater P in the UK and Ireland, Science of the Total Environment, 408 (8) 1847-1857.
- Holman IP, Rivas Casado M, Howden NJK, Bloomfield JP & Williams AT (2009) Linking North Atlantic ocean-atmosphere teleconnection patterns and hydrogeological responses in temperate groundwater systems, Hydrological Processes, 23 (21) 3123-3126.
- Rivas Casado M, Parsons DJ, Weightman RM, Magan N & Origgi S (2009) Geostatistical analysis of the spatial distribution of mycotoxin concentration in bulk cereals, Food Additives and Contaminants: Part A: Chemistry, Analysis, Control, Exposure and Risk Assessment, 26 (6) 867-873.
- Rivas Casado M, Parsons DJ, Magan N, Weightman RM & Origgi S (2009) Modelling a two-dimensional spatial distribution of mycotoxin concentration in bulk commodities to design effective and efficient sample selection strategies, Food Additives and Contaminants: Part A: Chemistry, Analysis, Control, Exposure and Risk Assessment, 26 (9) 1298-1305.
- Holman IP, Whelan MJ, Howden NJK, Bellamy PH, Willby NJ, Rivas Casado M & McConvey P (2008) Phosphorus in groundwater: an overlooked contributor to eutrophication?, Hydrological Processes, 22 (26) 5121-5127.
Conference Papers
- Rivas Casado M, Bellamy P, White S, Maddock I, Dunbar M & Booker D (2005) Defining spatial and temporal hydromorphological sampling strategies for the Leigh Brook river site. In: COST 626 European Aquatic Modelling Network, Silkeborg, 19 May 2005.
- Borsanyi P, Dunbar M, Booker D, Rivas Casado M & Alfredsen K (2005) The hydromorphological picture of meso-scale units of rivers. In: COST 626 European Aquatic Modelling Network, Silkeborg, 19 May 2005.
- Rivas Casado M, Bellamy PH, White SM, Dunbar M & Booker D (2004) Defining hydromorphological sampling strategies for ecological assessment. In: Fifth International Symposium on Ecohydraulics. Aquatic Habitats: Analysis & Restoration, Madrid, 12 September 2004.
Books
- Rivas Casado M, Muthusamy M, Khouakhi A & Leinster P (2021) Emerging remote sensing technologies for flood applications. In: Earth Observation for Flood Application Progress and Perspectives, Elsevier.
- Rivas Casado M, Woodget A, Ballesteros Gonzalez R, Maddock I & Leinster P (2020) Unmanned aerial vehicles for riverine environments. In: Unmanned Aerial Remote Sensing: UAS for Environmental Applications, CRC Press.
- Rivas Casado M, Palma M & Leinster P (2020) Autonomous systems for the environmental characterization of lagoons. In: Lagoon Environments Around the World - A Scientific Perspective, InTech Open.
- Rivas Casado M (eds), (2019) Novel Advances in Aquatic Vegetation Monitoring in Ocean, Lakes and Rivers, MDPI.
- Mcilwaine B, Rivas Casado M & Leinster P (2019) Using 1st derivative reflectance signatures within a remote sensing framework to identify macroalgae in marine environments. In: Novel Advances in Aquatic Vegetation Monitoring in Ocean, Lakes and Rivers, p. 43-65.
- Rivas Casado M, Corstanje R, Bellamy P & Marchant B (2013) Issues of sampling design in wetlands. In: Methods in Biogeochemistry of Wetlands. DeLaune RD, Reddy KR, Richardson CJ, Megonigal JP (ed.), Soil Science Society of America, Madison, Wisconsin, USA., p. 1-11.
- Mayr T, Rivas Casado M, Bellamy P, Palmer R, Zawadzka J & Corstanje R (2010) Two methods for using legacy data in digital soil mapping. In: Digital soil mapping: bridging research, environmental application, and operation. Boettinger JL, Howell DW, Moore AC, Hartemink AE, Kienast-Brown S (ed.), Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, p. 191-202.
