About the project
Landslides threaten lives and millions in damages across Great Britain, and climate change is making this worse. This project maps how plants can naturally stabilize slopes amid shifting weather extremes, pioneering sustainable, bioengineered solutions to protect infrastructure and communities in an uncertain future.
Rainfall-induced landslides pose a significant threat to infrastructure and public safety across Great Britain, costing millions annually. Despite their impact, there is limited policy guidance or broad-scale hazard assessment addressing landslide risk. Recently, sustainable engineering approaches have explored the use of plant roots to reinforce slope stability, particularly along vulnerable infrastructure such as railway embankments. While vegetated slopes offer a promising and low-carbon solution, their long-term effectiveness under climate change remains uncertain.
This project aims to assess and map the biomechanical potential of vegetation for slope stabilization under future climate scenarios. As average rainfall and temperature patterns shift, increases in climate variability may bring more extreme, infrequent weather events, raising the risk of slope failure, especially if vegetation has died back under prolonged drought. Understanding these complex interactions requires a multidisciplinary approach.
You will use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to integrate climatic projections, soil properties, and terrain metrics to produce regional landslide susceptibility maps. They will explore plant species with high biomechanical value and drought tolerance, identifying suitable candidates for future climate resilience. Experimental work will be supported by simulated slope failure studies using advanced facilities at the Boldrewood Innovation Campus.
This research will deliver actionable insights into where and how bioengineering strategies can most effectively reduce landslide risk. The ultimate goal is to inform adaptive land-use planning and promote the adoption of vegetation-based stabilization techniques as a sustainable mitigation tool in a changing climate.
This project offers you the chance to:
- attend and present at two or more international conferences, such as the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the European Geosciences Union (EGU), or similar
- develop demonstrable skills in project management, interdisciplinary collaboration, scientific writing, and public communication
- achieve expert-level proficiency in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for environmental hazard mapping
- gain advanced programming skills in Python and Matlab for data analysis, spatial modeling, and climate data integration
- acquire practical experience in laboratory-based biomechanical testing of plant-root and soil interactions
- obtain expert knowledge in plant and soil biomechanics, focusing on bioengineering for slope stability
- build competency in using climate projection datasets and applying statistical methods for climate risk assessment
- develop skills in experimental design through simulated landslide tests in state-of-the-art facilities in the National Infrastructures Lab
- enhance understanding of sustainable land-use planning and environmental policy relevant to natural hazard mitigation
