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Professor Paul Hallett

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Professor Paul Hallett
Professor Paul Hallett
Professor Paul Hallett

F.I. Soil Sci.

Chair in Soil Physics

Accepting PhDs

About
Email Address
paul.hallett@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 272264
Office Address

Room 2.23, Cruickshank Building, School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen Aberdeen, AB24 3UU

School/Department
School of Biological Sciences
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Biography

Previous Employment

2011  -  2013

 Head of Sustainable Production Theme, The James Hutton Institute

2008  -  2011

 Head of Plant-Soil Interface Group, Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI)

1997  -  2008

 Research Scientist, SCRI

1995  -  1997

 Postdoctoral Scientist, Silsoe Research Institute, Silsoe, UK

Education

BSc Agriculture, University of Guelph (1992)

PhD Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham (1996)

How special soil observatories in China are helping to create more sustainable agriculture

Links with China date back to 2000, with many scientists and students hosted in Aberdeen over the years.  Ongoing research using Critical Zone Observatories explores the environment from the top of trees to the bottom of the groundwater acquirer to gain a holistic understanding.  We are exploring how agricultural management drives the environment, currently seeking solutions for more sustainable management practices. 

Article in the Conversation

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Postgraduate Research Coordinator, School of Biological Sciences

MSc Soil Science, Course Tutor

 

External Memberships

President, British Society of Soil Science

NERC Peer Review College, Core Panel Member

Technical Editor, SOIL

Associate Editor, European Journal of Soil Science

 

Latest Publications

View My Publications

Research

Research Overview

I am a Soil Physicist working on solutions to food and environmental security, mainly focussed on the interactions between plants, microorganisms and the physical behaviour of soil. My work spans from understanding the fundamental processes driving changes in soil physical properties by biology, through to applied research examining soil degradation and the underlying causes.  

Recent projects have studied the capacity of different plant root traits to physically engineer soil, crop selection impact on hydrological cycling in southern China, the better use of organic resources in Ethiopia to improve soils and their capacity to produce food, and microplastic pollution of soils. This research is funded by a number of research councils.

Research Areas

Accepting PhDs

I am currently accepting PhDs in Biological and Environmental Sciences.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.

Email Me

Biological and Environmental Sciences

Supervising
Accepting PhDs
View Research Area

Research Specialisms

  • Soil Science
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Agriculture
  • Sustainable Agriculture and Landscape Development
  • Biophysical Science

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

My current research has four main areas: (1) engineering of the soil physical environment by plant roots, (2) impact of soil physical conditions on microbial processes, pollutant transport and root growth, (3) biophysical resilience of soil to stresses and (4) management of soil physical conditions for crop productivity.  It is underpinned by a cross-disciplinary team of staff and collaborators that includes plant scientists, soil biologists, geotechnical engineers, chemists and hydrologists.  The research uses a range of approaches including micron scale non-invasive imaging up to larger scale critical zone observatories.

Research Group

Technician

Jaime Buckingham - Soil Physics Research Technician

Postdoctoral Scientists

Dr Nasrollah Sepehrnia - NER/NSF Microplastics in Soil

 

 

Past Research

Postdoctoral Alumni

Dr Clare Brown, BBSRC NUCLEUS

Dr Fiona Fraser, RESAS Soil Resilience

Dr Maria Marin, BBSRC Rhizosphere by Design, NERC/NSF Signals in the Soil

Dr Muhammad Naveed, BBSRC Rhizosphere by Design

Dr Joe Oyesiku-Blakemore, NERC MIDST

Dr Hu Zhou, NERC RedSoilCZO

 

PhD Alumni (current students at bottom of page)

Getahun Yakob, Interventions to combat land degradation in agricultural landscapes in southern Ethiopia to improve livelihoods: from exclosures to soil fertility management. 2020-2023. Co-supervised by Prof. Jo Smith, Prof. Euan Phimister (Business School) and Dr Wolde Bori (IWMI – Addis Ababa)

Martyn Roberts, The role of place and scale on effectiveness of temporary storage areas for surface runoff attenuation. 2020-2024. Principal Supervisors – Dr. Mark Wilkinson (JHI) and Dr Josie Geris (Geosciences)

Catriona Willoughby, Designing crop rotations that are fit for the future. 2019-2023. Principal Supervisor – Prof. Christine Watson (SRUC).

Luke Harrold, The interactions of plant, microbial and physico-chemical controls on carbon and nutrient cycling in the rhizosphere. 2019-2023. Co-supervised by Dr. Eric Paterson (JHI), Dr. Barry Thornton (JHI), Dr. Ashish Malik and Dr. Gareth Norton.

Md Dhin Islam, Effects of soil physical conditions and alternate wetting and drying on the performance of rice. 2019-2023. Co-supervised by Prof. Adam Price.

Licida Giuliani, Does the Casparian strip influence plant root biomechanics? 2014-2022 (part-time). Co-supervised by Prof. David Salt, Dr. Kenneth Loades (JHI) and Dr. Gordon McDougall (JHI)

Yang Gao, Modelling and measuring soil organic carbon under different tillage practices in agricultural soils of the UK. 2017-2020. Principal Supervisor – Prof. Pete Smith

Mohsin Raza, Development of green value chemicals from renewable sources and their physical properties. 2017-2020. Principal Supervisor -  Dr Waheed Afzal (School of Engineering)

Mike Ogden - Habitat engineering by ectomycorrhizal fungi. 2013-2019. Co-supervised by Prof. D. Johnson.

Taupik Rahman, Influence of soil physical structure on nutrient capture by plants. 2018-2019 (MSc by Research)

Ewan Oleghe - Physical priming of rhizosphere soil. Co-supervised by Prof. Liz Baggs. 2015-2018.

Anastasia Fountouli - Are pH driven shifts to soil physical structure caused by chemical or biological process? 2013-2017. Co-supervised by Prof. Graeme Paton, Prof. Christine Watson (SRUC) and Dr Robin Walker (SRUC).

Xin Shu - Sustainability of nutrient cycling processes associated with arable land management (U. Aberdeen and SRUC). 2014-2017. Principal Supervisor - Prof. Bryan Griffiths (SRUC)

Purnomo Sidi - The suitability of Eichomia cressipes as loss circultion material on oil and gas drilling industry. 2013-2017. Principal Supervisor - Dr. Waheed Afzal (School of Engineering). Funded by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Republic of Indonesia.

Marianne Kuntz – Does soil organic matter, matter? (U. Aberdeen and SRUC). 2013-2016. Principal Supervisor – Prof. Liz Baggs

Rice roots bypass plough pans with biopores and cracks

This is a recent paper by PhD student Md Dhin Islam.  He found that a deep rooting rice cultivar exploited biopores and cracks to penetrate plough pans to access deep water and nutrients.  A shallow rooting rice cultivar was much poorer at doing this.  Most interestingly, roots responded differently to growing through cracks to biopores.

Article in Plant and Soil - Open Access

Collaborations

Current Collaborators

Cornell University, Carmen Enid Martinez - CoPI on NERC/NSF Soil Microplastics project

CIMMYT, CropSustaiN project looking for biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) in wheat

Hawassa University, IWMI and Central Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute, REDAA and GCBC projects on land restoration, biodiveristy and income diversification in Ethiopia.

The James Hutton Institute, Ken Loades and Tim George for PhD project supervision on root-soil interactions

 

 

Supervision

My current supervision areas are: Biological and Environmental Sciences.

A team of PhD students in the Soil Biophysics Group explores a diverse array of topics on physical and biological interactions in soil.  Graduates have research positions around the world in universities and research institutes.

The PhD students are truly multidisciplinary, made possible by diverse supervisory teams from different schools, universities and institutions.

Supervisees

Funding and Grants

Recent Grants

NERC/NSF: SitS NSF-UKRI: Wireless In-Situ Soil Sensing Network for Future Sustainable Agriculture. NE/T011068/1. Natural Environment Research Council/National Science Foundation USA. D. Young (Utah, PI), E. Yeatmans (Imperial), G. Norton (Aberdeen) and other partners, 2019-2021, £1500k - Co-PI

ESRC: Reducing land degradation and carbon loss from Ethiopia's soils to strengthen livelihoods and resilience (RALENTIR). ES/T003073/1. Economic and Social Research Council. E. Phimister (Aberdeen, PI), J. Smith (Aberdeen),W. Mekuria (IWMU), T. Tefera (U. Hawassa), A. Byg (The James Hutton Institute, G. Edo (Southern Agricultural Research Institute, Hawassa), A. Fischer (SLU) and others, 2019-2022, £921k - CoI

NERC: MIDST-CZ: Maximising Impact by Decision Support Tools for sustainable soil and water through UK-China Critical Zone science. NE/S009167/1. Natural Environment Research Council/Newton Fund.  56 partners in the UK and China, 2019-2021, £1097k - PI

BBSRC: NUCLEUS: a virtual joint centre to deliver enhanced Nitrogen Use effiCiency via an integrated SoiL-plant systEms approach for the Uk & BraSil. BB/N013204/1. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)/Newton Fund. with S. Mooney (Nottingham, PI), Bangor, Rothamsted and 7 Brazilian partners, 2016-2019, £2241k - CoI

ESRC: Improving Organic Resource use in rural Ethiopia (IPORE). ES/P002501/1. ESRC/NEXUS. with E. Phimister (Aberdeen, PI), J. Smith (Aberdeen), A. Fekadu (S. Nations, Ethiopia), W. Bori (IWMI, Ethiopia), T. Tefera (Hawassa, Ethiopia), G. Yakub (SARI, Ethiopia) and A. Fekadu (SARI, Ethiopia), 2016-2018, £166k - CoI

NERC: Building Resilience in Ethiopia's Awassa region to Drought (BREAD. NERC El Nino. NE/P004830/1. with J. Smith (Aberdeen, PI), E. Phimister (Aberdeen), A. Byg (JHI), M. Rivington (JHI), H. Black (JHI), T. Tefera (Hawassa, Ethiopia) and A. Fischer (JHI), 2016-2018, £297k - CoI

NERC: Red Soil CZ: From natural to anthropogenic evolution of Red Soil and its impact on ecosystem function in the Critical Zone.  NE/N007611/1. J. Smith (SBS Aberdeen) and J. Geris (Geosciences Aberdeen), and M. Hodson (York).  In collaboration with the Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2016-2019, £800k - PI

BBSRC: Rhizosphere by design: breeding to select root traits that physically manipulate soil. BB/L026058/1. T. Roose and I. Sinclair (Southampton), G. Bengough (Dundee) and T. George (JHI), 2014-18, £1363k - PI

EPSRC: Rooting for sustainable performance. EP/M019713G. Bengough (Dundee, PI), J. Knappett, D. Muir Wood, J. Smethurst (Southampton), T. Roose, I. Sinclar, W. Powrie. 2015-2019. £1578k - CoI

NERC: Multi-Vis: A high resolution large scale X-Ray CT Scanner to build a multi-scale environmental science focussed facility in northern UK. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Strategic Environmental Science Capital Call, with Dubravka Pokrajac. 2015. £350k - PI

ESRC: Network of Organic Resource use in rural Africa (NORA). Nexus research partnership programme  Networking Grant. E. Phimister (PI), J. Smith, B. Balana (IWMI, Ghana), A. Fekadu (SARI, Ethiopia), A. Fischer (JHI), H. Homans, P. Smith, T. Tefera (U. Hawassa, Ethiopia). £20k - CoI

CREW (Scottish Government). Effect of soil structure and field drainage on water quality and flood risk.  Allan Lilly and Nikki Baggaley (JHI), Bruce Ball (SRUC) and Bill Crookes (SAC Consulting). £140k - PI

AHDB - Potato Council - Platforms to test and demonstrate sustainable soil management: integration of major UK field experiments, Potato Council, with B. McKenzie (PI), T. George (JHI), Mark Stalham and David Firman (CUF), 2012-2016, £210k, Co-I

AHDB - HGCA - Platforms to test and demonstrate sustainable soil management: integration of major UK field experiments, HGCA, with B. McKenzie, T. George, T. Valentine, and A. Newton (JHI) and Ron Stobart (NIAB), 2012-2016, £644k  – PI transferred to BM on move to U. Aberdeen

Teaching

Programmes

  • MSc Soil Science
    Postgraduate, 3 stage, September start

    We offer the only dedicated soil science degree in the UK and one of the few remaining in Europe.  Soils have risen markedly on political agendas because they are central to climate change and food security.  The decades long legacy of work in this area provides comprehensive and cutting edge teaching.

     

Teaching Responsibilities

Course Tutor - MSc Soil Science

EV3001/SS5008 - Global Soil Geography (Course Coordinator)

PL3309/SS5305 - Soils for Food Security (Course Co-Coordinator)

BI1509 - Ecology and Environmental Sciences (Laboratory Tutorials)

BI25P4 - Plants, People, and the Environment (Lecture)

Publications

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