erielements Summer 2011

environmental

research

institute

Tracking ‘Bonxies’ on Hoy

Do marine renewable energy devices affect seabird populations? Scientists from the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) are tagging Great skuas (locally known as „bonxies‟) from a colony in Hoy, Orkney. They are investi-gating the movements and habitat used by these birds in the Pentland Firth and Orkney waters in relation to the proposed marine energy developments. Miniature GPS loggers are being fitted to the birds which will record the locations of the birds every few minutes throughout the breeding season. Eleven sites in Scotland's Pentland Firth and Orkney waters have been announced by The Crown Estate as sites for development of wave and tidal renewable energy devices. However, the environmental effects of these devices are unknown. The Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters provide feed-ing grounds for breeding seabirds from colonies in Special Protection Areas.

Hoy supports the second largest colony of bonxies in Britain after Foula, Shetland and comprises approximately 10% of the world‟s breeding population. International legislation requires that these seabird populations are not negatively impacted by the developments, but it is not clear whether, or how, seabirds from these colonies use the proposed marine renewable sites. Dr Elizabeth Masden, said that „very little was known about the movements of Great skuas at sea, particularly their fine-scale movements. We just don't know where the birds go to feed, so these data will be ex-tremely valuable for the marine renewables industry and of great interest to ornithol-ogists. It is great to be collaborating with col-leagues from the University of Glasgow,

University of Amsterdam and the British Trust for Ornithology on such an exciting project.‟ The study will also shed light on how seabirds use ex-treme marine environments such as the Pentland Firth. Preliminary results suggest that Great skuas from Hoy may be behaving differently to birds from colonies elsewhere such as Foula. This summer, the team at ERI will also attach GPS tags to Black guillemots nesting on Stroma Island, Caithness, as these birds may also be impacted by marine renewables. The research is part of the Marine Renewable Ener-gy and the Environment (MaREE) project that is led by ERI and funded by the Scottish Funding Council, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Eu-ropean Regional Development Fund.

Helen Wade, ERI , releasing a newly tagged

Great skua on Hoy

Attaching a GPS tracker to a Great skua

Great skua flying over the Pentland Firth

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ITALY - From 18 – 26th March 2011, Dr Angus Jackson visited Dr

Elena Maggi and Prof. Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi at the Dept. of Bi-ology in the University of Pisa, Italy. He was invited to help with knowledge exchange about methods for measuring microscopic plants (called microphytobenthos) that live on intertidal rocks. These tiny plants are the main source of food for many of the snails, includ-ing limpets, that live on the shore. Several days were spent in the field along the beautiful Tuscan coast near Calafuria, South of Pisa.

During his stay, Angus demonstrated methods for using digital colour infra-red cameras to measure these plants to re-searchers and PhD students. In return, he learned more about other remote-sensing methods to measure photosynthesis. These included how to measure the red light that is produced by chemicals in the plants as they photosynthesise in sunlight. This technique is called fluorime-try, and has great scope to complement methods using digital cameras. The visit successfully reinforced an existing collaboration and plans are afoot for more collaborative work and experiments. These will focus on small-scale pat-terns in distribution of microphytobenthos. Towards the end of his visit, Angus gave a presentation to the Department of Biology in Pisa about “Remote sens-ing methods in intertidal ecology”. For further information, contact: Angus.Jackson@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

ERI around the world

GREECE - In June 2011 I attended the international scientific conference

„Underwater Acoustic Measurements: Technologies and Results‟, which took place over five days in Kos/Greece. I was an invited speaker and gave a presen-tation in the structured session “Habitat Mapping and Underwater Acoustics”. My presentation was “Habitat mapping of a key tidal energy development site using underwater acoustics and remote sampling” and focused on my research on benthic habitats in extreme flow environments of the Pentland Firth. The presen-tation itself was very well received and people were very interested in my work. The session was well attended and I received numerous questions, comments and also suggestions on different approaches, which might be worthwhile to ap-ply to my data in the future. In addition to the success of my presentation, the conference as a whole was very useful for me and my studies. The sessions was excellent, with experts leading their field presenting their newest research results, some coming from as far afield as New Zealand. Sessions covered topics which were directly relevant to my work and presenters were very approachable. Hence, I made good con-tacts, which will hopefully lead to further collaborations and publications – a cru-cial requirement for my future scientific career. In addition, I developed new ide-as and received fresh input for my own research, which will enhance my PhD. Beside the hard conference life, I was also able to enjoy a bit of Greek culture. The receptionist of our family-run hotel in the centre of Kos town guided us every evening to local restaurants, in side roads far from touristy areas. Greek food is delicious and conversations with locals were enjoyable and very interesting. The ban-quet, which was organised by the conference, also introduced us to Greek wine and traditional dancing. All in all, I can say that I had a brilliant time in Greece – I presented my work to an audience of experts in underwa-ter acoustics, I learned a lot in various sessions related to my work, I met very interesting people and came back home with new ideas and several good contacts. For further information, contact: Astrid.Harendza@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

Astrid Harendza attending the conference in Greece

Colleagues from the University of Pisa, Italy at Calafuria

Measuring microphyto-benthos using a digital

infra-red camera

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ERI welcomes French Students

Between April and June two undergraduate mechanical engineering students from the University of Bordeaux I completed internships at the ERI in Thurso. Their projects were focused on improving understanding of some of the important coastal processes in the Inner Sound of Stroma. During their placements Estelle Marc and Antoine Thomas gained first hand experi-ences of some of the practical and technical skills required in a research en-vironment. Antoine enthused “To work on developing new ways to produce safe, clean and renewable energy was really exciting”.

Their work included collecting tidal current measurements from the Pentland Firth. Estelle and Antoine completed technical reports with the fo-cus on vertical tidal current structure and suspended sediment patterns. Es-telle commented “Not only did I get to study a subject that was new and in-teresting to me, I also discovered a new country and a new culture”

Estelle and Antoine on the RV ERI Aurora

TAIWAN - In April, Prof. Stuart Gibb and Dr Kenneth Boyd enjoyed a visit

to Taiwan (Republic of China) through the International Exchange pro-gramme of the Royal Society of Edinburgh with support from the National Science Council of Taiwan. The trip aimed to build on existing collaborative links with Taiwanese re-searchers, while looking to establish new partnerships which would help ad-dress a number of contemporary challenges in environmental science. Over the 10 day trip, Stuart and Kenny travelled the length of the country from Na-tional Taiwan University in Taipei in the North; to the Sun Yat-sen University

in Kaohsiung in the South, giving seminars and signing a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Na-tional Taiwan Ocean Univer-sity (NTOU) in Keelung. The dramatic economic rise of Taiwan in recent decades, known as the „Taiwan Miracle„, has transformed it into one of the four „Asian Tigers„ (together with Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong)„. Intensive investment in R&D at organisations such as the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has played a key role in this transformation,

particularly in areas such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and micro-electronics. Now, some leading Tai-wanese researchers are seeking to build international partnerships to boost the competitiveness of their work in other disciplines including environmental science. The trip provided extensive opportunity to explore topics from marine renewable energy to emerging environmental contami-nants; and from marine natural products to eco-toxicology. The potential for sharing new educational programmes and the exchange of research staff and students also featured in discussions. Transforming new leads into exciting new inter-national initiatives will be a priority in the coming months. For further information, contact: Stuart.Gibb@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

ERI around the world cont.

Dr Kenny Boyd and Prof. Stuart Gibb (centre) with colleagues in Taiwan

Kenny and Stuart at the Industrial Technology Research Institute.

ERI shares expertise in Marine Renewables

erieducation

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First year pupils across the Highlands and Islands have been learning about marine renewables as part of a series of work-shops run by the ERI. The programme, funded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the Scottish Government was part of the “Do Something Creative. Do Science” cam-paign. S1 pupils were introduced to wave and tidal renewable energy devices that harness the power of the seas, whilst con-sidering potential impacts on the environment and community impacts. The workshop, led by Neil James of the ERI, was delivered-nineteen times to a total of 848 pupils at nine locations across the Highlands and Islands, with events in Thurso, Wick, Inver-ness, Moray, Stornoway, Lerwick, Oban, and ending in Ork-ney (Kirkwall and Stromness). There was a high level of inter-est in learning about renewable energy, with schools travelling from as far afield as Kinlochbervie and Tiree to attend.

Pupils were keen to be involved in an activity which is highly topical and extremely relevant in Scotland, and that requires the application of science and mathematics in a contempo-rary, real world situation. The students were given a scenario where they were assigned a specific marine renewable de-vice to install around the fictional Yula Islands (left). Teams had to pick a location to install their device following a feasi-bility study to assess the suitability of each site, calculate po-tential energy production and do an impact assessment to determine the impact on the community and the environment. Each group was judged according to the accuracy of their assessment of the feasibility and impacts, and on their oral presentations, given at the end of the task.

The workshops were a resounding success, as pupils responded with high levels of enthusiasm and performance in the task, with every single team successfully completing their presentation. Teachers expressed their appreciation of the relevance and topical nature of the subject matter, application of mathematics based on a real world situation, and the presence of scientists and experts on renewable energy at the events. Teachers commented that the marine renewable workshops complement work undertaken within schools perfectly, with many teachers indicating an eagerness for more. The workshops, based on an initial idea by ERI‟s Kathleen McDougall, were designed and led by Neil James, with help from ERI staff Matt Easton, Astrid Harendza, Angus Jackson, Hester Jack-son, Elizabeth Masden and Jason McIlvenny.

Students working on the feasibility study at one of the workshops.

The Big GREEN Challenge

Other News

The Big Green Challenge is a debating competition for S2 pupils in the High-lands and Islands area. The competition , which reflects the Curriculum for Ex-cellence (CfE) in Scottish schools, focuses on renewable energy and tests the science knowledge and debating skills of all participants. To support the pupils involved, experts offer their time to visit schools and assist the school's team. John McClatchey from ERI was one of those experts and visited three schools -: Alness, Fortrose and Inverness Royal Academy. John was also involved in judg-ing one of the debates held at Charleston Academy in Inverness on 2 February which involved four schools (two debates). The format is that each school team has three members and each person has a few minutes to speak. Proposers and opposers of the motion take turns to speak. The school team judged to be the best goes on to the next round.

ERI helps students choose science

Staff and students from ERI have recently taken part in a number of careers advice activities. Together with colleagues from North Highland College, ERI provided a taster session for a „Try it out‟ day organised by ASPIRENorth on 8 February. The event, attended by S3 pupils from Wick High School, provided an opportunity for the pupils to look around their local college and get some ideas about educational options once they have left school. For further information on ASPIRENorth, please visit http://www.scotland-aspirenorth.ac.uk/.

ERI also took part in STEM career speed dating activities for S2 pupils at Wick and Thurso High Schools on 21 and 22 February, together with attendance at Careers conventions in Thurso and Golspie High Schools in early March, which were aimed at senior secondary school pupils (S4-6) and the wider community. These events provided the opportunity for attendees to meet local scientists and engineers, learn about their jobs and career paths and speak to some local employers about job opportunities.

STEM ambassadors from ERI took part in a local STEM Ambassador Road Show in January 2011, providing an opportunity for local teachers to learn more about the role STEM Ambassadors can play in school activities. This was a good opportunity for Am-bassadors and teachers to make contact and discuss possible collaborations. Together with many local businesses, ERI was recently invited to attend the Highland Council Business Support for Schools Awards Ceremony in Thurso on 10 February 2011. Here, local businesses were recognised for the support they provide for schools though the provision of work experience, skills for work and enterprise activities. Kathleen McDougall of ERI successfully applied for an Edinburgh Beltane Public En-gagement Fellowship. This will allow Kathleen to take some time out from her schedule to work on a project to review the provision of public engagement training across UHI and to develop a new training module with the help of other UHI partners and Edinburgh Beltane Partners. ERI have taken on a contract with the STEM team at Highlands and Islands Enterprise to develop and run problem solving days at locations across the north of Scotland in-cluding Caithness, Inverness, Moray, Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland and Argyll.

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ERI in the News

SNOWCOVER AND CLIMATE CHANGE ERI scientist, Prof. John

McClatchey has found a way of prolonging the notoriously fickle Scottish ski season - using bubble wrap. Despite two bumper winters with plentiful snowfall, the country's five ski resorts suffer badly when temperatures rise and melt the snow and high winds drive the snow off the pistes, leaving bare patches. John experimented on preserving snow cover with sheets of bubble wrap. He found that ordinary bubble wrap stops snow melting as quickly and prevents it from being blown away - and that painting the material silver to reflect sunlight works even better. Ski resort managers have said they would consider deploying bubble wrap in key areas where receding snow was hampering plans to keep the runs open for business. John, a climate scientist, started a study of snowfall patterns on Cairn Gorm, which showed that the ski centre on its slopes had lost an average of two days' skiing a year over the last 30 years as snow dis-appeared due to milder winters. The other centres at Nevis Range, Glencoe, Glenshee and The Lecht have had similar losses. As part of an EU-funded project on climate change, he found that it was not just the mild temperatures that were to blame, but that the combination of wind and temperature had a greater effect on snow loss in Scot-land than in other countries, where wind is less of a factor. He said: " It means, in future, if the weather is warmer and windier the snow will disappear faster.” John experimented with small sheets of clear plastic bub-ble wrap and also with wrap spray-painted silver on Cairn Gorm last year. Results showed more than 49cm of uncovered snow was lost over five days. A single cover of bubble wrap reduced that to 20cm and a dou-ble cover reduced it to 17cm. The silver-painted wrap reduced this further to 15cm - or 12cm with a double wrapping. John believes it may be possible to arrest the loss of snow from patches of the mountain long enough to al-low resorts to extend the season for at least one or two lucrative weekends of business. For further information, contact: John.McClatchey@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

WILDFIRES When wildfires burned across Scotland earlier this year,

reporters turned to the ERI for information on their impact on ecology and soil quality. ERI ecologist Dr Angus Jackson, told them that food chains and the chemistry of soils, such as peat, were threatened. Dr Jackson said the fires had come at a time wildlife was "waking up" fol-lowing winter. He said the wild fires were different from muir burnings, which are the controlled burning of moor and heath by landowners. By law, muir burning is carried out between October and April. Dr Jackson added: "Muir burning is done on a smaller scale and in a controlled way in cooler weather, though the fires can sometimes burn out of control. The wildfires have spread to larger areas and, because the ground is dry, are burning at greater temperature than muir burns. They come at a time when migra-tory birds are arriving in the Highlands to feed up for the breeding season, or are finding mates and nesting. Insects are starting to hatch and emerge and these provide food for other invertebrates, birds, amphibians and also fish." “What is not so widely recognised is fire's effect on soils.” Angus pointed out that the ERI has a PhD student who had studied the effects of fire on soil and the microbial life beneath the surface. "The full results are not available yet, but it looks like fire can be a threat to the pH (acidity) of soils and change its chemistry. This in turn influences the types of plants that grow with effects higher up in the food chain.". For further information, contact: Angus.Jackson@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

A fire burning on Kintail

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© Irina Foss

WEATHER Rain that wiped out play in golf's Scottish

Open was bad luck and unlikely to happen again to the

course that hosted it claimed ERI climate scientist Prof. John

McClatchey .

John said the new course at Castle Stuart, near Inverness, was in one of the driest parts of Scotland. On Saturday, 9th July – the third day of the Open - it was affected by a slow-moving weather system. The Open's organisers, the Europe-an Tour, said the area had double its average monthly rain-fall in one day. Torrential downpours caused flooding and a landslip.

“What happened on Saturday at the Scottish Open was un-

fortunate," said Prof McClatchey. He told the BBC “ a slow-moving weather system brought heavy rain to the

Highlands course and the nearby surrounding area. Unfortunately, if they are slow moving, then where it oc-

curs will tend to get a lot of heavy rainfall and because of the slow-moving system that heavy rainfall will be

prolonged. This was quite a narrow system that was probably only a few miles wide and perhaps about 10

miles in length, but was just sitting over Castle Stuart." He added: "Basically, it was just bad luck.”

“The Moray Firth is a dry area of Scotland and has rainfall typical of the Midlands and east of England, for ex-

ample near Nottingham or Northampton, so it is not a heavy rainfall area at all. In fact it is protected from

some of the typical heavy rainfall that we get in Scotland by the large area of mountains to the west. So the

Moray Firth would normally expect to be a fairly dry region and what happened on Saturday was unexpected."

In forecasting the UK's weather, predicting precisely where thunderstorms will hit can be problematic. Prof

McClatchey said: "As far as the UK is concerned we have to look at the whole of the north east Atlantic out

from the coast of Norway to the south west of France in terms of our major weather systems, so thunder-

storms are very small features in that very large region. Hence, although the possibility of thunderstorms can

be forecast, forecasting exactly where they will occur is not really possible."

For further information, contact: John.McClatchey@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

ERI in the News

INTERNATIONAL LINKS GMR Institute of

Technology (GMRIT), Rajam, India, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Envi-ronmental Research Institute of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) to establish a centre for excellence in environmental sciences and energy en-gineering.

Principal and Rector of GMRIT, C.L.V.R.S.V. Prasad said the main objective of establishing the centre is to study various environmental issues, particularly those concerning the Srikakulam district. ERI will provide hu-man resources and technical expertise in establishing the centre and will also be the technical partner. Prof. Andrew Rae of UHI and Associate Director of GMRVF, Ajay Reddy signed the MoU. The institute also signed a tripartite agreement with Perth College - UHI, MAS GMR Aerospace Engineering and JNTU-Kakinada to facilitate the launch of a B.Eng (Hons) and MSc in Aircraft Engineering. The Vice-Chancellor of JNTU- Kakinada Allam Appa Rao was present. It will be a dual degree twinning programme. The course will commence this year and will be delivered at both the JNTU-K and GMRIT campuses.

Part of the course underwater after the rain

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©stv.com

Environmental Research Institute

Castle Street, Thurso,

Caithness, KW14 7JD, Scotland

Tel: +44 (0) 1847 889589

Fax: +44 (0) 1847 890014

Email: eri-info@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

Centre for Energy & Environment,

North Highland College UHI, Thurso,

Caithness, KW14 7EE, Scotland

Tel: +44 (0) 1847 889000

Fax: +44 (0) 1847 889001

Web: www.eri.ac.uk

Sandstorm in a Teacup

The tea leaf paradox describes the phenomenon where tea leaves in a cup migrate to the centre and bottom of a cup after being stirred rather than being forced to the edges of the cup (as may be expected) from centrifugal force. The solution to this problem first came from none other than Albert Einstein in his 1926 paper in Die Naturwissenschaft (the Natural Science). Einstein‟s solution describes a spiral or “helical” flow that forces water outwards near the surface, but inwards at the bottom of the cup due to friction. As the tea leaves are denser than water they sink to the bottom of the cup. Here the spiral flow forces them to the centre rather than to the outside. Recent research at the ERI by Matthew Easton and Astrid Harendza has suggested that this same princi-ple may explain the presence of sand on the seabed of the Inner Sound of Stroma (Pentland Firth). Sand is denser than water and (just like the tea leaves in a cup) will fall to the bottom. The stirring motion is pro-vided by the tides; the Inner Sound of Stroma experiences very large currents that follow a tightly curved path. The result is that sand carried in the water accumulates on the inside of the curved path of the tidal streams. Matthew and Astrid are both funded as part of the SuperGen Marine energy research consortium.

For further information, contact: Matthew.Easton@thurso.uhi.ac.uk

Model of tidal stream in the Pentland Firth, showing the tightly curved path

Stroma