Dr. Stephen Lofts

Stephen has a B.Sc. in Chemistry and an M.Sc. in Pollution and Environmental Control from the University of Manchester. He obtained his Ph.D. in 'Modelling Chemical Speciation in the Natural Environment' from Lancaster University in 2004.

Stephen joined what is now UKCEH in 1995. His research interests centre around the processes controlling soil and surface water chemistry and their application to predicting the fate of contaminants. A key element of his work is to develop and use models of environmental chemistry to predict the transport, fate, bioavailability and uptake of chemicals. He also has expertise in risk assessment processes for such chemicals in soils and waters. He has either led or contributed to the development of a number of tools that use chemical process modelling:

• Equilibrium chemistry of water and soils (WHAM);
• Modelling the combined toxicity of protons (i.e. acidity) and metal mixtures in freshwaters (WHAM-F_TOX);
• Modelling metal dynamics in soils over long time periods from decades to centuries (IDMM);
• The bioavailability and toxicity of metals in surface waters (BLM);
• Prediction of metal fate in agricultural soils and nearby surface waters (IDMM-ag);
• Catchment scale transport and fate prediction for engineered nanomaterials (NanoFASE).

He is currently involved in a number of projects on this theme:

• Modelling the water quality of the UK over the long term and into the future (LTLS-FE) (co-PI);
• Reviewing and developing risk assessment and life cycle analysis models for pharmaceutical compounds (ETERNAL);
• Incorporating chemical process descriptions for engineered nanomaterials into transport and fate models (ASINA/SAbyNA)