Dr Veronica Edmonds-Brown (Ronni) is a Senior Research Fellow in aquatic ecology, after 28 years of teaching on environmental management and ecology she is now based at the University of Hertfordshires Bayfordbury Campus for research. For the last decade Ronni has looked after the ecological management of this site which has a range of freshwater and terrestrial habitats, is biodiverse and packed with protected species. 

Research interests include urban river pollution; impacts of flood and drought on aquatic habitats and their species; impacts of sewage spills and misconnections; macroinvertebrate community compostiion change over time; biodiversity; river restoration; rearing of aquatic invertebrates; impacts of non native species and habitat management. She was the first to successfully breed our native freshwater crayfish in captivity and is the Hertfordshire County recorder for Trichoptera (caddis) and Plecoptera (stoneflies).  She is in the process of writing up results of long term data on caddis life history tables and urban river ecology monitoring of invertebrate communites, chemistry and coliforms. Dr Edmonds-Brown is a member of the British Ecological Society (BES) and for the last 20 years managed the aquatic ecology groups JISCMAIL (membership). She is also a member of the Freshwater Biological Association and sits on numerous committess related to environmental issues.  

Dr Edmonds-Brown has collborated with a number of colleague from other organisations such as UCL and CEFAS with resulting papers on farm pond management and alien fish species. Having supervised 10 successful PhDs on topics such as river restoration, chalk river hydrology,  misconnections, impacts of alien fish introductions, urban river pollution and species management she is currently supervising two PhD students. Dr Edmonds-Brown has good relations with the Environment Agency and local Water companies. 

Media:

BBC London news on floodling summer 2021.

Repeated over Christmas & New Year 2021-22 on BBC World News.

TV: Countryfile on sea level rise. Aired 31st October 2021.

BBC radio 15/02/22 on the impact of pharmaceuticals on rivers (a World Health report).

The Conversation 21st April 2022. From Biologically Dead to chart toppingly clean: how the Thames made an extraodinary recovery over 60 years. 

The  Conversation https//theconversation.com/sewage-pollution-why-the-UK-water-industry-is-broken-186762

ITV London news - on droughts. 11th August 2022.

The Times. 'Sewage turns London streams into open sewers'. 2nd January 2023.

ITV London news - on misconnections. 4th January 2023.