The Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) is delighted to showcase the successful Seedcorn Award projects for 2025/2026. These IHRR Seedcorn Awards of up to £2,000 are funded by Durham University and the IHRR Donor Fund for Research and Outreach Initiatives, providing small-scale, competitive awards for early-stage research and outreach activities in hazard, risk, and resilience. These innovative initiatives reflect the creativity, ambition and interdisciplinary spirit that define our community. Each funded project opens new pathways for understanding and addressing the complex risks facing societies and environments today, while supporting researchers to develop bold ideas with real-world impact. We are proud to celebrate this year’s awardees and the exciting work their Seedcorn support is helping to bring to life.
Project Co‑Leads
Milad Banitalebidehkordi (PhD student - ECR)Prof. Karen JohnsonDr. Sravan Muguda (Assistant Professor - ECR)
Climate change and extreme weather are increasing wildfire risk and hazard through heatwaves and drought, alongside poor soil health and reduced water. Wildfires turn topsoil from a carbon sink to a carbon source, increasing soil hydrophobicity and degradation risk. This Seedcorn work supports the PhD project of Milad Banitalebidehkordi (‘Integration of a cooling system for fire-prone regions’). The PhD has developed a realistic lab fire-testing setup with a multifunctional soil amendment incorporating a CaCl₂-crosslinked alginate hydrogel (brown seaweed) and wollastonite (CaSiO₃) to reduce fire-driven degradation while protecting soil organic (SOC) and inorganic carbon (SIC) pools. The hydrogel improves water retention, potentially reducing SOC vulnerability during heating, while wollastonite provides reactive mineral surfaces that may promote enhanced weathering and strengthen organo-mineral protection of alginate-based SOC (through Fe/Mn oxides; Xiao et al., 2023). We have validated the amendment, achieving up to 600% strength gains for soils beneath critical infrastructure. With IHRR support, we will collaborate with Dr. Elisa Lopez-Capel and UNDO to develop a Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) workflow to test whether amendments also stabilise SOC and SIC. TGA will demonstrate carbon-stability fingerprints (labile SOC loss and SIC signals), justifying the next stage of post-fire resilience tests (soil microbiome, health and strength recovery).
The WHO and World Organisation for Animal Health identify Community-based Animal Health Surveillance (CAHS) as key to mitigating zoonotic disease risks and contributing to pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, especially in remote areas of the Global South where shared spaces of wildlife, livestock, and people increase disease spillover risk, yet resources and capacity to monitor animal health and disease dynamics are limited. With community partners and collaborators in Zambia’s Department of Veterinary Services, CIFOR-ICRAF, and the Universities of Birmingham and Manchester, I launched a pilot CAHS system (with £5000) in southern Zambia (November 2025 – July 2026) that is already demonstrating impact in helping surveil and respond to zoonotic disease risks. The funds will support a workshop in Lusaka, Zambia to demonstrate the impact made by our CAHS pilot project to potential funders (UNFAO & CIFOR-ICRAF) and to develop collaborations and knowledge sharing to support an £800k Darwin Initiative bid aimed at scaling up our CAHS project/approach to other areas in Zambia and Kenya.
The workshop and project complements IHRR’s transdisciplinary work to support multi-sector and community-oriented approaches to proactively mitigate and respond to hazards and risks. It will strengthen IHRR’s engagement with pandemic and infectious disease-related hazard, risk, and resilience.
Project Co-lead: Dr Ashutosh Kumar, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi (IIT Mandi), India; Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR), Durham University.
Early-career researcher: Ms Abhiparna Dasgupta, PhD Candidate, IIT Mandi. She is currently undertaking doctoral research on the effects of fault rupture phenomena on natural slopes, with advanced numerical modelling using ABAQUS. She visited IHRR in 2024 as a visiting PhD student and worked jointly within the IHRR and the Department of Engineering.
This project will investigate the seismic resilience of traditional Himalayan heritage structures, with particular focus on Kath-Kuni architecture in Himachal Pradesh and comparable historic buildings in Nepal. Building on our prior work on earthquake response of slopes, seismic assessment of unreinforced and confined masonry systems, and geotechnical hazards in tectonically active mountain regions, the study will integrate field documentation, structural characterisation (including non-destructive testing techniques), and advanced numerical modelling strategies to quantify how vernacular timber-stone systems respond to earthquake loading in geotechnical-hazard contexts. Kath-Kuni construction, with its alternating timber and stone layers, is widely regarded as valuable, inherently resilient cultural construction typology; however, its dynamic behaviour, load-transfer mechanisms, and failure thresholds remain insufficiently understood. The project aligns directly with the hazard, risk and resilience themes of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience by addressing seismic hazard impacts on culturally significant yet structurally vulnerable built heritage in high-risk Himalayan settings. The work will generate preliminary analytical models, vulnerability indicators, and a comparative framework for Himalayan region. Seedcorn funding will enable pilot data development, interdisciplinary engagement across engineering and heritage studies, and co-design of a larger external proposal focused on community-centred seismic risk reduction and climate-resilient conservation strategies in mountain regions.
Bilal Bilal
Assistant Professor in Accounting in the Business School, Durham University
Jim Haslam (Director of Research in Accounting Department); Dr Um-i-Lela (GIFT University, Pakistan)
The effects of climate change on gender inequality and mental health represent a significant concern. Currently, there is no existing tool to measure climate-induced gender disparities in Central Punjab. This study aims to develop a measurement tool to assess these disparities and inform relevant interventions.Specific objectives include:• To systematically explore the lived experiences of individuals regarding the impact of climate change on their mental health through systematic review.• To identify the specific ways in which climate change exacerbates gender inequality and mental health via qualitative study.• To generate themes and constructs related to the impact of climate change on mental health and gender inequality that can inform the development of a culturally relevant scale.• To identify potential items for inclusion in a future scale based on the identified themes and constructs.
This study employs systematic review and a two-part qualitative study on Central Punjab (Jehlum to Gujranwala) region of Pakistan to understand and measure the impact of climate change on gender inequality and mental health. The research acknowledges that the researcher’s background and perspectives may influence the research process; therefore, reflexivity will be practiced throughout to address potential biases.
Ethical considerations, including informed consent, confidentiality, and the right to withdraw, will be carefully addressed.
Jane Simmons (Senior Sustainability Manager, EFD - Estates Operations)Ian Armstrong (Biodiversity Manager, EFD - Estates Operations)Michael Harkness (Energy Manager, Infrastructure - EFD - Estates Operations)Dr. Thayna Almeida (Visiting Associate to Durham University - visiting from Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Brazil, April - September 2026) [*Early Career Researcher (ECR)*]
This IHRR pilot project will setup, commission and initiate the monitoring of a functional rain garden on the Durham University campus as a living testbed for hazard, risk and resilience research in relation to surface water flooding. This project is co-leads by Estates Operations/Sustainability to support the installation and instrumentation of a ‘HydroPlanterFlex’ rain garden system to quantify its performance in managing runoff volumes, peak flows and soil moisture dynamics under real and simulated storm events. This generates a unique dataset quantifying how the rain garden attenuates flood hazard, reduces combined sewer overflow loading and delivers biodiversity/amenity co-benefits. The testbed will strengthen external funding bids (e.g., UKRI/NERC/EPSRC) by providing an on-campus testbed and build long-term capacity for IHRR-aligned impact. This funding also feeds into maintaining Durham’s QS world Sustainability ranking (24th).
The project directly addresses IHRR themes by linking hydrological hazard (intense rainfall) to risk (localised flooding and service disruption) and resilience (nature‑based infrastructure that mitigates impacts while delivering wider ecosystem services). It will underpin future external funding bids on nature‑based solutions, net‑zero resilience and SuDS performance, providing a demonstrator site for impact activities with local authorities, water companies and community groups interested in sustainable flood risk management.
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