Geoforensics and Information Management for crime Investigation (GIMI)

Project Staff - Willie Towers

Mr. Willie Towers BSc.
Environmental Sciences,
The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute,
Craigiebuckler,
Aberdeen
AB15 8QH UK

w.towers@macaulay.ac.uk
www.macaulay.ac.uk

Tel: 01224 395000
Fax: 01224 311556

Current research activities

Willie Towers has 27 years of experience in soil survey and land evaluation. He was a member of the team that produced the 1:250 000 scale soil map for Scotland and the Land Cover of Scotland dataset and he also made significant contributions to the Institute soil database.  His principal research interest is in the use and interpretation of soil and related environmental data in a wide range of environmental and ecological applications, including organic waste recycling to land, heavy metal behaviour and biological impacts in soil, and native woodland and moor-land potential.

Much of this work has been published in refereed journals and presented at national and international conferences, but they have also fed into policy and strategy development through commissioned consultancies from a range of government agencies and the private sector. His current research interest is in the concept of soil functions at the landscape scale and their potential as a mechanism to investigate trade-offs between land uses.

• Senior soil surveyor responsible for soil survey and soil characterisation in a number of areas of Scotland
• Use and interpretation of soils and related datasets in a number of diverse applications
• Novel application of metal binding classification to Scottish soils database and subsequent development of a biological classification scheme
• Development of land suitability classification for sewage sludge recycling and its use in the formulation of sludge recycling strategies by the Scottish Water Industry
• Key role in SEERAD Waste to Land project, in collaboration with SAC.

Publications

Dawson, L.A., Towers, W., Mayes, R.W., Craig, J., Vaisanen, K. and Waterhouse, E.C.  The use of plant wax signatures in characterising soil organic matter. Forensic Geoscience. In press,

Artz, R.R.E., Townend, J., Brown, K., Towers, W. and Killham, K. 2005 Soil macropores and compaction control the leaching potential of Escherichia coli O157:H7. Environmental Microbiology, 7, 241-248.

Betson, M., Anthony, S., Lord, E., Dunn, S., Lilly, A., DeGroote, J., Towers, W., Struve, J., Tagg, A., Abbott, C., Lewis, D., MacDonald, J., Badger, R., Ferris, N. and Ward, B. 2004 A GIS decision support screening tool for diffuse pollution in Scotland and Northern Ireland. SAC/SEPA Biennial Conference on Agriculture and the Environment V: Water Framework Directive and Agriculture.

Towers, W., Paterson, E. and Coull, M.C. 2002 Potential impact of draft proposals to revise the EC Directive (86/278/EEC) controlling sewage sludge applications to land. Journal of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, 16, 65-71.

Towers, W., Hester, A.J., Malcolm, A., Stone, D. and Gray, H. 2002 The use of soils data in natural heritage planning and management. Soil Use and Management, 18, 26-33.

Towers, W., Campbell, C.D., Paton, G.I., Patterson, E., Dawson, J., Cameron, C.M., Coull, M.C., Christie, P. and Scanlan, C. 2002 The development of a biological sensitivity classification of soils to heavy metals. Proceedings of the 17th World Congress of Soil Science, Volume 5, p1735.