Professor Steven Banwart

Prof. Steven Banwart's core science expertise is basic chemistry that is also applied to the study of soil systems and natural waters. His achievements include combining laboratory experimentation, theoretical mathematical modelling, and data from field studies in order to describe water flow and transport and mechanism of chemical transformations that quantify:

• Soil functions that produce crops, store and filter infiltrating water, transform nutrients, store carbon from the atmosphere as organic matter, provide habitat and sustain biodiversity
• Weathering of rock and minerals to deliver solutes to drainage waters in catchments and river basins including the release of contamination from mining sites
• Role of the geological barrier to contain civilian high level nuclear waste within underground repositories constructed in bedrock
• Biogeochemistry and natural biodegradation of hydrocarbon pollution in soil and groundwater aquifers