Research Interests

Phil is a Professor of Soil and Water Science and an international biogeochemist focused on nutrients, especially phosphorus, and started his research in the early 1990s at BBSRC’s North Wyke (now Rothamsted Research), building his reputation studying fundamental mechanisms and processes in soils and water, widening to catchment, national and global scales. He has contributed leadership in the role of organic phosphorus compounds and their role in the wider nutrient cycles.

After joining Lancaster University in 2008, Phil led the UK National Demonstration Test Catchment consortium in the River Eden. Phil has developed the much-used diffuse pollution nutrient ‘Transfer Continuum’ and ensuing ‘Cost Curve’ and UK ‘Diffuse Pollution Inventory’ models that provided foundation for wider nutrient models being used by UK Gorvernment (e.g. Farmscoper) and worldwide (from 2005 to date), making world-leading contributions to knowledge in nutrient cycling in agriculture and the environment. Phil has published ca. 260 refereed journal papers, some in Nature family journals and other significant published outputs, including authored books, most recently 'Phosphorus, Past and Future' (2021).

Phil became Director of the Lancaster University Graduate School for the Environment in September 2022, reflecting his long-term commitment to post graduate doctoral training and his lead if the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on Soil Science (called 'STARS) from 2015-2024. Phil has personally supervised 25 sucessfull PhD students, and indirectly helped an additional 40 PhDs, though his role as Director of STARS.

Most recently, Phil has been focussed on climate change impacts on soil-water nutrient biogeochemistry, and in 2022 started a new collaborative UKRI NERC research grant called ‘Accelerating Nutrient Cycles at the Riparian Land:Water Interface’, with research on nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon focused release from riparian river systems in northern England’s Eden, Scotland’s River Dee, the Swedish boreal forest and eastern Germany.