Andy Baker

To a paper published in 2001 that saw me sampling rivers and sewage treatment plant final treated effluent in northeast England. And then analysing the water samples for their intrinsic fluorescence properties. How did that all come about?

I had recently started a new position at the University of Newcastle, and had started to work with hydrologists to there. And I was using the latest fluorescence spectrometer technology to analyze organic matter characteristics in cave drip waters, groundwater and estuaries.

The new technology was able to probe further into the ultraviolet spectrum, and make much faster analysed than before, allowing maps of optical properties to be made in minutes rather than hours. Using these maps, I was seeing fingerprints of organic matter in water for the first time.

Back to the paper, which reports the use of fluorescence to fingerprint rivers impacted by sewage, and leading to poor river water quality outcomes. I was talking with the Environment Agency in England and Wales at the time, and they were interested in understanding water quality issues in the region.  EA scientist Roger Inverarity, acknowledged here, suggested these upland river systems as study sites. Old industrial towns situated on these rivers had their own sewage treatment plants, whose effluent was a significant volume of downstream river flow. An ideal test site for me. And Roger became a long term collaborator. We went on to investigate the fluorescence signatures of other concerns for water quality at the time, such as organics in farm wastes, fluorescentbwhitening agents in pulp mill effluent, PAHs in landfill leachate, coliforms in cross connected sewage systems and more over the next three years.

All these papers can be found here in the papers tab.