Dr Jill Edmondson

School of Biosciences

Senior Lecturer

NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow

j.edmondson@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 0065

Full contact details

Dr Jill Edmondson
School of Biosciences
E208
Alfred Denny Building
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
Profile
  • 2022 - present NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow
  • 2021 - present Senior Lecturer School of Biosciences
  • 2016 - 2021 EPSRC Living with Environmental Change Fellow
Research interests

My interdisciplinary research aims to address the challenge of improving the sustainability and resilience of ecosystems, with a focus on urban and agricultural systems.  I have a particular interest in the interaction between soils, plants and the ecosystem services they provide to a growing global population.  

Urban horticulture

My research addresses the current and future potential of urban horticulture to make a contribution to local and national food security. This includes growing at a household level in gardens and allotments and using controlled environment agricultural systems in grey infrastructure.  I am also interested in the ecosystem service co-benefits of growing food, from soil quality to health and wellbeing.  As part of this research I run a national-scale citizen science project called Measure Your Harvest (MYHarvest.org.uk), that works people to collect long-term home grown crop yield data. My research also addresses the bioavailability of urban soil pollutants to fruit and vegetable crops and potential risks to human health. I work closely with local authorities and NGOs to deliver this applied research.

Soil and vegetation carbon budgeting

I have developed methods for soil carbon budgeting in complex urban ecosystems in both greenspaces and beneath greyspaces.  I am really interested in the role of black carbon in soil carbon storage and sequestration. 

Understanding the urban forest

Trees have been demonstrated to contribute disproportionately to ecosystem service provision in cities and towns but we have less understanding of how the unique combination of pressures in the urban environment, e.g. pollution and encasement in greyspace, affect their health and resilience to future climate change.  My research addresses both the role of urban trees in provision of ecosystem services e.g. heat island mitigation and carbon storage, and the effects of urban pressures on tree health and resilience at a species specific scale and the consequences for ecosystem service provision.

Publications

Journal articles

Chapters

  • McHugh N, Edmondson JL, Gaston KJ, Leake JR & O’sullivan OS (2016) Modelling Short-Rotation Coppice and Tree Planting for Urban Carbon Management-A Citywide Analysis, Urban Forests: Ecosystem Services and Management (pp. 37-58). RIS download Bibtex download
Teaching activities

Level 1

  •   APS11008 (Climate Change and Sustainability).

Level 2

  • APS21005 (The Urban Ecosystems field course)
  • BIS222 (Ecosystems and Sustainability in a Changing World) and run a six-week plant-soil practical.

Level 3

  • APS358 (Topics in Modern Ecology) is designed to engage students with some of the big questions in modern ecology by studying recent literature.
  • Supervision for level 3 literature reviews.
  • Supervision for MBiolSci, MEnvSci, MSc, and MRes student literature reviews and research projects.
Professional activities and memberships
  • Editor at Plants, People, Planet
  • Editor at Soil