University of the West of England, Bristol Research Team

profile photo of professor chad staddon

Chad Staddon (PhD, University of Kentucky, USA,1996)

Professor of Resource Economics and Policy

Team Leader

Professor Chad Staddon is an economic geographer with an international reputation in natural resource policy and management, particularly water and forest resources. His 1996 PhD thesis, shortlisted for the J Warren Nystrom Award (of the Association of American Geographers), focused on East European water resource management. Since then he has published more than three dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, won more than a dozen research grants, prizes and awards in the UK, Canada and the United States, and recently launched the International Water Security Network, funded by Lloyd’s Register Foundation.  His 2010 book Managing Europe’s Water Resources: 21st century challenges, was the first publication to outline a uniquely European approach to environmental crisis and sustainable water management. In 2012, he was appointed Research Professor jointly with the School of Geography and Development and Biosphere 2 at the University of Arizona.   He has also been awarded a Research Fellowship for 2012-2014 at the Global Research Institute of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Chad's current research focusses on the economics of domestic water services provision and the "urban hydrosocial transition" in a number of case study cities around the world including Bristol, UK, Tucson, Arizona, Durban South Africa, Kampala, Uganda and Vancouver Canada.  His specific contribution to the SWAN project involves compiling case studies of public participation and stakeholder engagement in water management in Europe and the USA.

 

Kerry Burton, PhD in Human Geography (Exeter)

Senior Lecturer in Geography and Environmental Management

Kerry is a critical geographer with research and teaching expertise in the social science of the environment. Her research is concerned with hydro-social relations, primarily environmental justice, hydro-conflicts and contestation, civil society innovation and experimentation, and the politics and practices of participation.  In addition to a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Exeter, Kerry holds postgraduate qualifications in Sustainable Development (MSc) and Environmental Policy in an International Context (PGDip). Teaching at UWE includes Intergrated Water Management, Geographies of Security, and Managing Global Resources. Kerry is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Secetary to the RGS Political Geography Research Group.
 
Within the SWAN project, Kerry is examining public participation in water governance and the communication of science with an emphasis on two key arenas. The first of these concerns governance and contestation, particularly the negotiation of water knowledges, ontological difference, and overlapping territorialities. The second looks to informal social networks and emerging water publics.

Lorraine De Souza

Research Associate

Lorraine’s research interest and experience is in utilising public participation to develop environmental sustainability.  She is the SWAN Research Associate in the UK team, and is currently involved in developing a delivery framework for an Ecosystem Services pilot project in the UK.  Her previous environmental experience has been in regulation and consultancy, working across the UK and Common Wealth countries.  One of her previous key achievements was advising and developing a national public engagement model and toolkit for the implementation of the Public Participation Directive into UK environmental regulation policies, together with an assessment of its effectiveness with stakeholders and communities.  She has a Masters in Environmental Management and her dissertation focused on global warming and the impacts on natural resources.  She intends to utilise her experience and undertake research in developing SWAN’s public participation in water governance at a global level. 

Mark Everard

Associate Professor of Ecosystem Services

Mark's interests include the development and implementation of ecosystem services and the Ecosystem Approach in international development, policy and non-governmental contexts, with a special interest in the sustainable use of aquatic ecosystems.

Owen King

Doctoral Researcher

Owen's particular research interest is in the relations between people, nature and, particularly, water resources. His doctoral research is sponsored by the SWAN project and focuses on spaces of consensus and antagonism relating to water governance in the western United States and the United Kingdom. Exploring the contention that the answer to water problems may be more linked to political and institutional trajectories than it is to technological or behavioural factors, the study aims to use local controversies concerning water to illuminate the ways in which institutions mediate the relations between people and communities on the one hand, and the changing nature of water resources on the other. To identify these "hot situations" and understand the network of relations that shape these hydro-social landscapes, the work will entail an extensive contextual historic analysis and 'mapping' of key actors, followed by in-depth interviews and qualitative investigation. By relating the situated experiences of those involved in water struggles, the objective will be to offer critical perspectives on the theories and discourses which frame the management of what arguably is our most critical and threatened natural resource.