Lancaster Environment Centre

Background

This project addresses perhaps the greatest challenge facing humankind: feeding a world population approaching 7 billion against a background of growing concern over our planet’s capacity to adapt to a changing climate. The recent IPCC report highlights both a predicted increase of 2-4oC in global surface warming by 2100 and significant perturbation in patterns and intensity of rainfall predicted to lead to serious droughts and more frequent flooding, both severe problems for food production and for the maintenance of a safe and secure water supply.

Now, possibly more than at any time in the past, is there a need for innovation to ensure we can successfully meet such a global challenge. Improvement in security of supply and quality of water would also have a significant positive impact on sustainable development and health in parts of the world increasingly important to the UK as emerging markets. To meet this challenge, we need innovation to: quantify agricultural water requirements; increase water and resource use efficiency in food production; quantify and ameliorate the extent, source, fate and health impacts of water contamination; develop new environmental modelling capabilities; adopt emerging intelligent environmental sensor technology and make greater use of biosolids and wastewater. The WaterSci bid from the Lancaster Environment Centre and several labs in China, a partnership which leads the world in sustainable water management, proposes to focus on the development and exploitation of tools to deliver on this global innovation challenge and market opportunity.

Our collaborations in China:

• China Agricultural University: Crop management and irrigation science (Prof. Kang Shaozhong); plant molecular physiology and genetics (Prof. Jia Wensuo & Prof. Lai-Hua Liu).
• The Chinese Academy of Sciences: (i) State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Guangzhou: sources, fate, behaviour and effects of organic contaminants in water and air (Prof. Gan Zhang). (ii) Institute of Soil Science, Nanjing (and the State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University): Availability of metals to rice and other plants (Dr Jing Song (CAS) and Prof. Xiarong Wang (NU). (iii) Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural resources research, CAS, Beijing: hydrology (Prof. Xingguo Mo); (iv) CAS Wuhan Botanic Gardens: freshwater macrophyte ecology and physiology (Dr Wei Li).
• North West China Agriculture and Forestry University: The National Center of Efficient Irrigation Engineering and Technology, National 836 project (Prof. Wu Pute).
• Department of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, Zhongnan, Hospital, Wuhan University School of Medicine: Water-borne diseases and their etiology.

Publications

1. Zhang HM, Forde BG (1998) An Arabidopsis MADS box gene that controls nutrient-induced changes in root architecture. Science 279, 407-409
2. Remans T, Pervent M, Filleur S, Diatloff E, Mounier E, Tillard P, Forde BG, Gojon A (2006) The Arabidopsis NRT1.1 transporter participates in the signaling pathway triggering root colonization of nitrate-rich patches. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103: 19206-19211
3. Walch-Liu P, Forde BG (2008) Nitrate signalling mediated by the NRT1.1 nitrate transporter antagonises L-glutamate-induced changes in root architecture. Plant J. 54, 820-828
4. Zhang HM, Jennings A, Barlow PW, Forde BG (1999) Dual pathways for regulation of root branching by nitrate. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96, 6529-6534
5. Jia,. W. and Davies, W.J. (2007) Modification of leaf apoplastic pH in relation to stomatal sensitivity to root sourced ABA signals. Plant Physiology 143, 68-77.
6. Davies, W.J. (2007) Root growth response and functioning as an adaptation in water-limited soils. In, Jenks, et al. (Eds) Advances in Molecular Breeding towards Salinity and Drought Tolerance, 55–72.
7. Belimov, A., Dodd, I.C., Hontzeas, N., Theobald, J.C., Safronova, V.I.. and Davies, W.J. 2008. Rhizosphere bacteria containing ACC deaminase increase yield of plants grown in drying soil via both local and systemic hormone signalling. New Phytologist In the Press
8. Davies, W.J., Wilkinson, S. and Loveys B. (2002) Stomatal control by chemical signalling and the exploitation of this mechanism to increase water use efficiency in agriculture. New Phytologist 153, 449-460.
9. Dodd, I.C., He, J., Turnbull, C.G.N., Lee, S.K. and Critchley, C (2000) The influence of supra-optimal root-zone temperature on growth and stomatal conductance in Capsicum annnum L. Journal of Experimental Botany 51, 238-249.
10. He, J., Lee, S.K. and Dodd, I.C. (2001) Limitations to photosynthesis of lettuce grown under tropical conditions : amelioration by root-zone cooling. Journal of Experimental Botany 52, 1323-1330.
11. Morison, J.I.L., Baker, N.R., Mullineaux, P.M. and Davies (2007) Improving water use in crop production. Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. Series B 363, 639-658.
12. Duarte-Davidson, R., Wilson, S., Alcock, R. E. and Jones, K. C. (1995). Identification of priority organic contaminants in sewage sludge. Department of the Environment. 130pp.
13. Chaudri, A. M., McGrath, S. P., Knight, B. P., Johnson, D. L. and Jones, K. C. (1996). Toxicity of organic compounds to the indigenous population of Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar trifolii in soil. Soil Biol. Biochem. 28: 1483-1487.
14. Belimov, A.A., Dodd, I.G., Safronova, V.I., Hontzeas, N. and Davies, W.J. (2007) Pseudomonas brassicacearum strain Am3 containing 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase can show both pathogenic and growth-promoting properties in its interaction with tomato. Journal of Experimental Botany 58, 1485 - 1495.
15. Kang SZ, Su XL, Tong L, Zhang JH, Zhang L, Davies WJ (2008) A warning from an ancient oasis: intensive human activities are leading to potential ecological and social catastrophe. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 15, 440-447.