Dr Jaswant Singh PhD

Dr Jaswant Singh

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Research Fellow

Contact details

Address
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Jaswant is a Research Fellow working on high-frequency water-quality monitoring across Birmingham’s River systems, developing sensor-based data workflows to advance understanding of pollution dynamics and improve urban water-resource management.

Qualifications

PhD in Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, 2025
M.Tech in Environmental Science and Technology, NIT Durgapur, 2018
B.Tech in Civil Engineering, Vinoba Bhave University, 2016

Biography

Jaswant is an environmental hydrologist with expertise in microplastic pollution, subsurface contaminant transport, groundwater quality, and high-frequency environmental sensing. He joined the University of Birmingham as a Research Fellow on the UKRI-funded SmartWater project in August 2025, where he managed advanced in-situ sensor networks and developed automated workflows for water-quality data processing and interpretation across Birmingham’s urban catchments.

He completed his PhD in Hydrology at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, focusing on microplastic transport in soil–groundwater systems. His research combined laboratory column experiments, field sampling, and hydrogeological investigations to understand microplastic mobilisation under varied flow regimes and environmental conditions. During his PhD, he was awarded the prestigious Commonwealth Split-site Scholarship to conduct research at the University of Birmingham (2023–2024), where he developed column experimental systems to assess microplastic behaviour under rainfall dynamics.

From 2024–2025, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CNR-IRPI in Italy, contributing to coastal groundwater studies on seawater intrusion and submarine groundwater discharge using hydrochemical, isotopic, and geophysical methods.

He has developed analytical methods for microplastic extraction and characterisation, built modelling frameworks for subsurface transport, and contributed to interdisciplinary projects on groundwater contamination and risk assessment. His work has been published in high-impact international journals including Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, and Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.

He actively contributes to international scientific communities through presentations at EGU, AGU, Goldschmidt, and other major conferences, and serves as a reviewer for peer-reviewed journals. He also co-convenes EGU conference sessions on micro- and nanoplastic transport in subsurface environments.

My long-term vision is to advance real-time environmental monitoring and hazard mitigation strategies that protect groundwater and surface-water systems in rapidly urbanising environments.

Teaching

Guest teaching contributions in groundwater hydrology and environmental monitoring

Delivered workshops on field instrumentation and data quality control

Research

Current Research

• SmartWater: high-frequency water-quality monitoring and pollution risk detection in urban rivers
• Sensor network optimisation and QA/QC workflows
• Real-time analytics for dissolved organic matter and contaminants

Previous Research

• Microplastic mobilisation in gravel sediments under dynamic flow conditions
• Hydrochemical and isotopic characterisation of coastal aquifers (Italy)
• Landfill-linked groundwater contamination and geophysical investigations
• Microbial fuel cell systems for wastewater treatment