Professor Nick Kettridge

Supervisor Details

Contact Details

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham

Scientific Background

Research Interests

Professor Nick Kettridge specializes in characterizing the ecohydrological resilience of ecosystems to both natural and anthropogenic disturbance. Much of his research focuses on peatlands; understanding the processes that control the provision of key ecosystem services within these environments, and quantifying their response to changing climatic conditions and extreme events such as fire and drought.

Supervision Style

In three words or phrases:

Provision of Training

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Progression Monitoring and Management

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Communication

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Meetings

PhD Students can expect scheduled meetings with me at least once per week / fortnight / month. These meetings will be face-to-face / via video chat or telephone / a mixture of face-to-face and via video chat or telephone. I am usually contactable for an instant response on every working day / 3 or 4 days per week / 1 or 2 days per week.

Work Patterns

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Notice Period for Feedback

I need at least 1 week's / 2 weeks' / 1 month's notice to provide feedback on written work of up to 5,000 words.

MIBTP Project Details

Primary supervisor for:

Crop wildfires: assessing and mitigating the threat to sustainable UK arable farming

See the PhD Opportunities section to see if this project is currently open for applications via MIBTP.

Please Note: The main page lists projects via BBSRC Research Theme(s) quoted and then relevant Topic(s).

Crop wildfires: assessing and mitigating the threat to sustainable UK arable farming

Secondary Supervisor(s): Dr Florian Busch

University of Registration: University of Birmingham

BBSRC Research Themes:

Sustainable Agriculture and Food (Plant and Crop Science)

Project Outline

The 2022 & 2022 UK heatwaves provided a glimpse of the future impact wildfires pose to agricultural practices, with wildfires causing substantial damage to crops, leading to homes being evacuated & smoke health warnings. National Farmers Union Mutual reported costs of £110 million from farm fires in the UK in 2023. Fire weather is projected to increase across the UK within the next century, with the frequency of days with ‘very high’ fire danger likely to double if global temperatures increase by 2oC. We can expect to see an increasing wildfire threat to sustainable arable farming in the UK, but there is a distinct lack of scientific knowledge to quantify & mitigate this threat. We critically need to assess the UK crop wildfire danger, to determine how changes in fire weather will impact wildfire frequency, size & apply this knowledge to develop sustainable agricultural solutions.

Crop flammability depends strongly on fuel moisture content. This project will assess how crop flammability varies between varieties, management practices, soils, & phenological cycles under current & future climates, through field & greenhouse experiments to inform an assessment of UK arable wildfire danger. We will develop a network of arable crops to derive the underlying controls on crop fuel moisture & flammability. Specific mechanistic controls will also be targeted based on the interests of the applicant. This field network will be combined with green house-based growth experiments that will support high replication of a wider diversity of controls & capability to assess the potential impacts of increased atmospheric CO2 on fuel moisture & flammability within the UoB Wolfson Advanced Glasshouses. Through modelling-based approaches, this knowledge will be applied to assess wildfire behaviour within agricultural landscapes to consider how low intervention mitigations could have the potential to limit the scale of the future arable wildfire risk.

APPLY HERE