Chiral signatures were utilised as a means of determining the pathways of PCBs in the environment. Concentrations of HBCD diastereoisomers, enantiomers and degradation products were also determined in top soils from both the UK and Australia. Concentrations of PCBs 28/31, 52, 101, 118, 138, 153, and 180 and enantiomer fractions (EFs) of PCB 95 and 136 were determined in air, top soil and grass from an urban site in Birmingham, UK. Samples were taken approximately every 14 days at 5 graduating heights from the ground in summer 2009 (114 days) and spring 2010 (84 days). EFs of PCB 95 in air at 3cm height (average of 0.453 in 2009 and 0.468 in 2010), differed significantly (p<0.05) from the racemic EFs in air at 10, 40, 90, and 130 cm. The EFs of PCB 95 in soil were on average 0.452 in 2009 and 0.447 in 2010 and matched those in air at 3cm particularly in the 2009 campaign. Grass displayed an average EF of 0.468 (2009) and 0.484 (2010); values which were intermediate between those in soil and the racemic EFs in air measured at 10 cm and above. These data imply that at the study site, PCBs volatilise from soil to an extent discernible only at the soil:air interface, and that PCBs in grass arise due to foliar uptake of volatile emissions from soil. Atmospheric concentrations of PCBs increased significantly (p<0.05) with increasing height above the soil surface. This combined with the PCB 95 chiral signature data, suggests that the influence of PCB emissions from soil on airborne concentrations decreases with height while emissions from indoor air increases. HBCD chiral signatures were found to be racemic or near-racemic in all the air, grass and soil samples from the same urban site in Birmingham, UK used for sampling PCBs. Soils from 24 ii sites across the UK were also found to contain near racemic chiral signatures of HBCDs. This indicates that enantioselective microbial degradation is not occurring and the sites were unsuitable for a study like that used for PCBs to determine pathways of HBCDs into plants using chiral signatures. Concentrations of ΣHBCD from soils from the UK (n=24) were found to be 22 ng/g ranging between <0.03 to 420 ng/g. By comparison, the average concentration of ΣHBCD in soils from Australia (n=17) was 0.74 ng/g ranging between <0.0005 to 5.6 ng/g. Degradation products of HBCD, pentabromocyclododecenes (PBCDs) and tetrabromocyclododecadienes (TBCDs) were also semi-quantitatively determined in the soil samples. In the UK soils, PBCDs and TBCDs were determined in 7 and 6 of the soil samples respectively with concentrations ranging from 10-7300 pg/g for ΣPBCDs and 10-1300 pg/g for ΣTBCDs. In the Australian soils only TBCD was detected in soil at concentrations ranging from 2.3 to 450 pg/g ΣTBCDs. A preliminary environmental budget found soil to be the principal sink for HBCD in the UK.

Climate change is a global phenomenon that has led to policy-making in many spheres. Since the early 2000s, when the projected impacts of climate change had increasingly come to the fore, there has been added momentum in tourism studies to researching sustainable tourism and travel behaviour. Using the National Trust as a lens, this study explores the potential contribution climate change policy makes in achieving sustainable heritage tourism. The research shows how such a policy evolved at the National Trust alongside key events and developments the charity has undergone since 1995, its centenary year. Senior policy-makers, managers, volunteer staff and visitors to properties in the West Midlands region were interviewed to understand their views on climate change, wider environmental matters, transport issues, and the charity’s response to tackling climate change. The study found that through mitigation and adaptation strategies, climate change policy does support and inform a sustainable approach to heritage tourism but that dependency on car-borne transport to rural heritage sites remains the ‘Achilles heel’ of sustainable heritage tourism as well as illuminating some of the imbalances between conservation and access.

The overall goal of this study is to identify the teleconnection mechanisms that underlie ENSO-Antarctic climate links. Initially time series plots and cross correlation analysis of Antarctic surface and upper air climate data are used to search for high latitude atmospheric signals during Pacific Ocean warm (ENSO) and cold (La Nina) events. Consistent increases (decreases) in pressure were found during warm (cold) events, with a variable response in temperature. Upper air data demonstrate consistent changes in windspeed, cloud cover geopotential height" wind speeds and direction, temperature and relative humidity during ENSO events. Spatial anomaly plots, Hovmoller, harmonic and cluster analyses are used to identify ENSO related climate anomaly wavetrains, teleconnections and propagation mechanisms that link Southern Hemisphere low and high latitudes. Although inter-warm and cold event variability is a characteristic, strong meridional anomaly contrasts, equatorward and poleward anomaly propagation, and distinct jetstream behaviour were apparent in all events studied. In warm (cold) events subtropical jet strength increases (decreases) and polar jet strength decreases (increases) resulting in a decrease (increase) in poleward moving cyclonicity. The jetstreams are considered to play a major role in ENSO related climate anomaly propagations.

River flow is a major driver of community dynamics in riverine-floodplain ecosystems. Flow-induced disturbance can have large impacts on taxonomic groups at higher trophic levels such as birds. However, our understanding of river flow-avian relationships is constrained by a failure to focus on multiple species’ responses to hydrological variables across large geographical areas. The aims of this thesis are to combine a national-scale dataset of river bird surveys with river flow archives to: (i) understand how hydrological disturbance affects the distribution of river birds, and (ii) evaluate the potential impacts of climate change-induced shifts in river flow on such species’ distributions. Species have complex, but biologically interpretable, associations with hydrological variables. Variation in river flow acts as an environmental filter that influences community assembly processes. Specialist river birds are most vulnerable to climate-induced shifts in river flow and their distributions may shift in response to future changes in river habitat suitability. The success of relating hydrological variables to the distributions of river birds demonstrates that variability in river flow has consequences for ecological structure at high trophic levels and that climate-induced shifts in river flow may represent a previously unidentified mechanism by which climate change mediates range shifts in birds.

Vegetation is a critical component of Mediterranean palaeolandscape studies, however variable data quality and quantity, a lack of understanding of Mediterranean vegetation processes, and complex environments may preclude important palaeolandscape debates from being answered adequately. Issues of representation and uncertainty, and difficulties comparing palaeoecological data against archaeological records often tend to confound clear conclusions from being drawn. Modelling and simulation studies can alleviate some of these difficulties, however, palaeovegetation models have not been utilized to a great extent in the Mediterranean. To help redress the balance, this thesis established a vegetation modelling framework set in Mediterranean southwest Turkey. The framework developed a bioclimatic model, and employed Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates to model pollen zone boundaries. A final stage converted vegetation modelling output to pollen simulations to compare model output with actual analytical pollen data. The model framework was then employed to investigate three disputed points in Mediterranean palaeoecological history. Firstly whether climate could account for concurrent evidence of high lake stands and steppic vegetation signatures during last glacial period. Different aspects of this scenario were explored, including potential refugia locations for cold and drought intolerant species, and the balance of humidity and aridity across the region that may have allowed glacial advance and high lake levels. The model was secondly employed to analyse the potential for a lag in tree expansion in southwest Turkey at the beginning of the Holocene, and was finally employed to examine the beginning, expansion and end of the enigmatic Beyşehir Occupation Phase.

A series of detailed laboratory experiments have been carried out to investigate the processes of needle-ice growth and the mechanisms by which needle ice incorporates and transports sediment. The use of laboratory techniques has made it possible to control and monitor the environmental conditions at the soil surface closely, and thus isolate the elements that are important for needle ice growth. Two types of fine-grained soil sample were used: disturbed (remoulded) and undisturbed. These were taken from sites where needle ice was seen to grow naturally. Remoulding the soil sample affected the growth of needle ice and therefore the amount of sediment uplifted by the ice. Several types of needle ice were observed: clear, multitiered, crystals with dispersed sediment, soil caps and soil aggregates. Each type was produced under different conditions of soil-surface temperature and moisture. Soil-moisture availability was particularly important in controlling the type and rate of crystal growth. An algorithm has been developed with which to predict the type of crystal that will grow in a given freezing cycle. It is suggested that sediment becomes incorporated into the crystals when there is a disturbance in the environment of needle-ice growth. This disturbance is a result of instabilities in the balance of heat at the freezing front caused when either soil-surface temperature or soil-moisture content fall below a minimum threshold. Typical sediment yields ranged from 0.002 to 2.5 g cm\(^-\)\(^2\). The sediment incorporated into the needle-ice crystals was coarser than the bulk soil from which it was lifted. The transport of sediment by needle ice was also investigated. It was found that the distance of sediment transport is dependent on the slope angle, length of ice crystal, process of crystal melt, and type of marker particle and soil sample. A series of simple, statistical models is presented that attempts to predict the growth and morphological effects of needle ice.

This thesis aims to develop the foundations for a new validation strategy for route-based road weather forecasts that will enable validation of route-based models at a vastly improved spatial and temporal resolution, and in doing so provide a tool for rapid appraisal of new model parameterisations. A validation strategy that uses clustering techniques to create clusters of forecast points with similar geographical and infrastructure characteristics is presented, as well as two methodologies for de-parameterising key geographical and infrastructure parameters in the ENTICE route-based model that are currently not measured at the spatial scale demanded by a route-based forecast. The proposed validation strategy facilitates the analysis of forecast statistics at the cluster level, which is shown to provide a more representative measure of the model’s spatial forecasting ability. The majority of thermal variations around the study route are well represented by the clustering solutions, presenting the opportunity for new sampling strategies with the potential to validate forecasts at a vastly improved spatial and temporal resolution. De-parameterisation of the road construction and surface roughness parameters within the ENTICE model using Ground Penetrating Radar and airborne LIDAR data has been shown to significantly improve the spatial forecasting ability of ENTICE, with the model changes leading to refinement of the clustering solution which enables it to better capture the physical relationship between road surface temperature and the geographical and infrastructure parameters around the study route. Suggestions for future research are provided along with a blueprint for the future of route-based road weather forecasts.

A field-based research study has been undertaken on the River Tame within the industrial city of Birmingham, UK, to understand better the influence of urban groundwater discharge on surface-water quality. The 8 km study reach receives ~6% of its total baseflow (60% of which is groundwater) from the underlying Triassic Sandstone aquifer and flood-plain sediments. An integrated set of surface water and groundwater flow, head and physical/chemical data was collected from installed riverbed piezometers and existing monitoring across the aquifer. Field data and supporting computer modelling indicated the convergence of groundwater flows from the sandstone/drift deposits and variable discharge to the river (0.06 to 10.7 m\(^3\)d\(^{-1}\)m\(^{-1}\), mean 3.6 m\(^3\)d\(^{-1}\)m\(^{-1}\)), much of which occurred through the riverbanks. Significant heterogeneity was also observed in groundwater quality along and across the river channel. Key contaminants detected were copper, nickel, sulphate, nitrate, chlorinated solvents, e.g. trichloroethene, and their biodegradation products. Groundwater contaminant concentrations were generally lower than expected and ascribed to dilution and natural attenuation within the aquifer and riverbed. High concentration plumes were detected, but their effect was localised due to substantial dilution within the overlying water column of the river. Estimated contaminant fluxes were not found to reduce significantly the present surface water quality, which is poor (>30% is pipe-end discharge). Comparative studies elsewhere and further elucidation of heterogeneity and natural attenuation controls are recommended.

Many everyday motor tasks require interpersonal action where the goal of the joint task is shared among all those involved. The aim of this thesis was two- fold; first, to explore bottom-up and top-down factors affecting interpersonal movement and second, to examine discrepancies in motor strategy arising between intrapersonal and interpersonal task conditions. In Chapter 2, participants coordinated their wrist movements to a live model whose own actions increased in frequency over time. Motoric and spatial contributions to the stability of interpersonal coordination were teased apart; testing whether spatial congruency overrides anatomical congruency. However, both factors influenced the task. Furthermore, the representation strength of these factors was not influenced by perspective (allocentric, egocentric). Chapter 3 investigated synchronization to self-versus-other when agency was either unknown or when participants were told (correctly or falsely) who they were synchronizing to. Participants synchronized arm movements to point- light stimuli derived from either their own or another person's previous motion recordings. Performance during self-belief trials was better relative to other belief trials, indicating a significant top-down modulation of behaviour. Chapter 4 probed interpersonal adherence to Fitts' Law, specifically looking at how task workload was shared across players when efficiency was emphasized. Players placed targets down at location distances of their discretion in order for their task partner to hit them. An equity-efficiency trade-off which violated Fitts' Law was observed. Chapter 5 studied how motor strategy across intrapersonal and interpersonal conditions differed in a reach-to-target task where two vBOTs jointly controlled the movement of a single cursor. Force perturbations ensured that both participants/hands experienced on shared 'difficult' direction and one shared 'easy' direction; the other two directions were difficult for one and easy for the other. Interpersonal behaviour was characterized by an iii equity-efficiency trade-off absent in the intrapersonal task. Overall, this thesis provides behavioural evidence of how interpersonal motor behaviour is modulated by bottom-up, topdown, social-goal and movement-control variables.

Coal fly ash (CFA) can be regarded as a unique material with the potential to be a showcase waste to illustrate the concept of the circular economy. The application of a processing scheme to power station CFA allows the exploitation of multiple components of the product. The CFA can be separated into low density, carbon, and magnetic concentrates as well as the residual fly ashes. This work contributes to a growing body of research that suggests multi component utilisation of CFA is technologically, environmentally, and economically imperative. The thesis explores five separate but related themes that attempt to increase the exploitation of CFA. In the first it is shown that CFA products that are derived from a commercial scale processing scheme exhibit differences in bulk chemistry, mineralogy, and particle size. In the second theme, a study of the rheology of CFA suspensions was conducted. The third aspect of the thesis explores the current method of recovering cenospheres from bulk CFA. The fourth part of the thesis covers the separation of carbon from CFA using an environmentally benign waste material such as vegetable oil. Finally, a silver activated titanium dioxide floating photocatalyst has been manufactured using cenospheres as an industrially derived substrate.