Harriet Sleight
PhD Student

Profile

Biography

Harriet is a PhD researcher interested in the impacts of pharmaceuticals on the environment, particularly in agricultural contexts.  Harriet’s work combines the fields of soil science, environmental chemistry, ecotoxicology and plant biology to investigate the potential impacts of pharmaceuticals on the health of agricultural soils and crops.  

Prior to starting her PhD at the University of York, Harriet completed an integrated masters (MSci) in Environmental Science at Lancaster University where she found her interest in the behaviour of pollutants in the environment, environmental chemistry and soil science.  Harriet completed a masters dissertation investigating the performance of the atmospheric trace gas Halon-1301 as a groundwater age tracer in the UK.  This project stemmed from Harriet’s work investigating water pollution and groundwater age dating techniques whilst undertaking a research placement in Nagasaki University, Japan. Before this, Harriet researched soil-plant-ecosystem interactions with burrowing seabirds on Skomer island in Pembrokeshire; mapping island soil concentrations of the key nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus and utilising stable isotope ratios to infer nutrient origins.  Harriet is excited to be able to transfer her experiences in soil science, environmental chemistry and plant-soil interactions to this multidisciplinary PhD.

Career

2020 – present: PhD Environmental Science, University of York.

2016 – 2020: MSci (Hons) Environmental Science, Lancaster University

Research

Overview

Pharmaceuticals are used globally for human and animal treatment. These substances are released to the environment following consumption via excretion, leading to their accumulation in manure, sewage sludge and wastewater.  These pharmaceuticals are then released into agricultural environments when manure and sewage sludge are applied as fertiliser and when wastewater is used for irrigation. Their presence in agricultural soils has been shown to affect crop growth, soil microbial communities, antimicrobial resistance in soils, and soil functioning.  This evidence base, however,  is largely limited to a small proportion of the pharmaceuticals used in human and veterinary medicine. Longer term irrigation with wastewater will result in chronic pharmaceutical exposure, and the volume of wastewater used for irrigation is likely to increase in future due to increased likelihood of summer droughts. 

This project aims to assess the implications of long-term exposure of agricultural soils to a wide range of pharmaceuticals in terms of:

• The uptake of pharmaceuticals in crops
• The impacts on crop development, yield and quality
• The impacts on soil health and soil chemical and biological processes

This PhD is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Adapting to the Challenges of a Changing Environment (ACCE) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP).