Professional summary
Laura is a spatial and environmental scientist interested in the efficacy of land management policies for carbon sequestration and their long-term viability. She is the theme lead for the UKCEH Countryside Survey soils programme and lead data analyst for the soil and freshwater research themes of the Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring & Modelling Programme (ERAMMP) national field survey.
She is passionate about the effective translation of science for policy application, has experience leading teams for rapid evidence reviews for policy stakeholders and experience conducting longer form systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Laura trained as an ecologist in plant sciences with a research interest in natural forest regeneration and forest water use. She has experience collecting, processing and analysing and integrating a wide variety of ecological datasets, including Earth Observation data.
Bentley, L., & Coomes, D. A. (2020). Partial river flow recovery with forest age is rare in the decades following establishment. Global Change Biology, 26(3), 1458–1473. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14954
Bentley, L., Palate, S., Ribone, P. A., Tennyson, E. M., 2050: A New World—Observations from a Policy-Making Board Game for Climate Change Engagement, (doi:10.3390/IECPS2020-08763)
David A. Robinson, Attila Nemes, Sabine Reinsch, Alan Radbourne, Laura Bentley, Aidan M. Keith (2022), Global meta-analysis of soil hydraulic properties on the same soils with differing land use, Science of The Total Environment, 852, 22, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158506.
Levy, P., Bentley, L., Emmett, B., Garbutt, A., Keith, A., Lebron, I., and Robinson, D. (2023): The Effects of Land Use on Soil Carbon Stocks in the UK, EGUsphere , https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1681
Keenleyside, C.B., Alison, J., Bentley, L., Garbutt, R.A., Noble, D.G. & Smart, S.M. (2021). Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring & Modelling Programme (ERAMMP). ERAMMP Report-59TA2: SMS Natura 2000 Restoration Award Evaluation Technical Annex 5. Report to Welsh Government (Contract C210/2016/2017)(UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Projects 06297 & 06810)
Alison, J., Bowgen, K., Siriwardena, G.M., Williams, B., Reinsch, S., Garbutt, R.A. & Emmett, B.A. (2021). Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring & Modelling Programme (ERAMMP). ERAMMP Report-58: ERAMMP Square Selection Protocol 2021/2022. Report to Welsh Government (Contract C210/2016/2017)(UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Projects 06297 & 06810)
Amy Thomas, Laura Bentley, Chris Feeney, Stephen Lofts, Ciaran Robb, Ed C Rowe, Amanda Thomson, Eleanor Warren-Thomas, Bridget Emmett (2023),
Land degradation neutrality: Testing the indicator in a temperate agricultural landscape, Journal of Environmental Management, 346, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118884.
Christopher J. Feeney, David A. Robinson, Aidan M. Keith, Audric Vigier, Laura Bentley, Richard P. Smith, Angus Garbutt, Lindsay C. Maskell, Lisa Norton, Claire M. Wood, B. Jack Cosby, Bridget A. Emmett, (2023) Development of soil health benchmarks for managed and semi-natural landscapes, Science of The Total Environment, 886, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163973.