Groundwater is a hugely important natural resource, providing the majority of drinking water globally, some 35% of drinking water in the UK, and up to 80% in southern England. High frequency real-time systems are now widely used in water industry for water quality monitoring, however transient microbiological contamination is currently still monitored using traditional spot sampling and culturing techniques. The highly dynamic nature of microbiological contamination necessitates high frequency on-line monitoring for the optimisation of down-stream processes such as treatment and distribution. We propose to pilot and embed within the UK water industry the use of new fluorescence sensors to enable this. In addition, while it is generally understood that high levels of faecal contamination in groundwater may be accompanied by relatively high turbidity, this is often not the case, and depends on the source and pathway of faecal contamination in the subsurface. Differentiation of turbidity derived from aquifer material or induced by pumping and that derived from microbial contaminants has significant potential benefits to the water industry through treatment process optimisation. Water companies in England and Wales have invested £42 million on investigations into source water characterisation and treatment process optimisation from 2010 - 2015 (OFWAT 2009) but understanding transient microbial contamination remains a significant challenge. Recent NERC funded research on in-situ fluorescence spectroscopy, now a well-established technology, offers a highly sensitive method to achieve this for raw groundwater sources. Through a partner led process we have developed a proposal to pilot, embed and develop an implementation strategy for this technology that is relevant for the UK water industry, but is also highly relevant for international water and health sector organisations. As part of this proposal, placement activities within two UK water companies (Affinity Water and Wessex Water) will be carried out to i) pilot and embed the use of tryptophan sensor technology in the UK water industry for improved monitoring of microbiological contamination in vulnerable groundwater sources, ii) provide robust evidence on the suitability of the current turbidity trigger (1NTU) for groundwater quality assessments, iii) provide an implementation strategy for this technology within the UK water sector through user-led collaboration. This will be carried out though visits to all UK water companies to obtain feedback on how this could benefit and be implemented in different parts of the water sector and disseminate findings with potential new end users. Working with key partners from across the UK water industry, including water companies (Affinity Water and Wessex Water) and cross-sector organisations (UKWIR, Water UK and DWI), TryGGER aims to embed within the UK water sector the use of on-line sensors for monitoring dynamic microbiological contamination in groundwater sources for improved use of water resources and optimisation of treatment processes. The application of this sensor technology will be piloted in four case study sites in the UK, through placement activities undertaken by BGS scientist in water industry partners. These have been selected in consultation with water utilities to be representative of vulnerable groundwater settings, with wide applicability both within the UK context and globally. Importantly, a strategy for implementing the use of these sensors for raw water quality monitoring will be developed with end users from across the UK water industry as part of this proposal to enhance wider uptake of this technology. This proposal has the potential for far reaching impact in the UK water industry and further afield. Involvement of the main players in the water industry, as well as utility firms, from early on during proposal development this has ensured that is highly relevant to the end-user community.

Thousands of Oil & Gas industry structures in the sea are approaching the end of their lives. At this time, they typically need to be removed and the environment returned to a safe state. This process is known as decommissioning. As many of these sites are old (typically 20+ years) and originally were drilled before the current environmental regulations existed, there has often been some contamination of the seabed around these sites. To ensure that no harmful effects will occur, decommissioning operations need to be supported by an environmental assessment and subsequent monitoring. Monitoring may be required over many years after decommissioning, especially if some structures are left in place. Monitoring surveys in the offshore environment are expensive and time-consuming, requiring ships and many specialist seagoing personnel. This requirement, although vital, will have a considerable cost for industry and the public. Ocean robots, which use computer systems to carry out survey missions by themselves, are regularly used in detailed scientific assessments of the environment. As they collect very high-quality data quickly, such robots have recently been adopted for some tasks by industry but these still require an expensive support ship as they are not capable of long-range missions. Recent technological developments have cut the cost and expanded the range of these robots to thousands of kilometres, making it possible for long-range assessments of multiple sites to be undertaken with a robot launched from the shore. This would have many advantages, improving the quality and quantity of environmental information while cutting the costly requirement for a survey ship and crew. We will carry out the first fully autonomous environmental assessment of multiple decommissioning sites. The Autosub long-range ocean robot submarine ("Boaty McBoatface") will be launched from the shore in Shetland, visit and carry out an environmental assessment at three decommissioning sites in the northern North Sea, before returning around 10 days later with the detailed survey information onboard. The robot will take photographs of the seabed, and these will be automatically stitched together to make a map of the seafloor, structures present, and the animals that live there. Established sensor systems will measure a range of properties of the water, including the presence of oil and gas. As well as the decommissioned sites, the robot will visit a special marine protected area where we know there are natural leaks of gas, to check the robot can reliably detect a leak if it did occur. On return to shore, the project will examine all the data obtained and compare it to that gathered using standard survey ship methods. We will test if the same environmental trends can be identified from both datasets to determine if the automated approach would be a suitable replacement for standard survey ship operations. The project will also produce a fully documented case study, which includes detailed information on the costs and benefits, practical information on deployments and approaches to reduce the risks and improve the efficiency of operations. This will be used by industry, scientists and government regulators, to demonstrate the techniques and will provide the necessary information to potential users to aid in their adoption. The overall goal of the project is to improve the environmental protection of the North Sea at a reduced cost and to demonstrate how this leading UK robotic technology could be used worldwide.

The health of human, animal and plant populations is under constant threat due to infections by a large variety of pathogenic microorganisms, such as bacteria and viruses. The fact that pathogens are able to spread rapidly and harm human populations has also led to the development of a variety of biological weapons which threaten not only soldiers in the field of operations, but even civilian populations in benign public environments such as a tube stations or airports. Threats to civilians also include those from non malicious sources such as within healthcare (hospital acquired infections, e.g. the superbug MRSA) or from the food industry (contaminated foods with pathogenic E. coli). The ability to diagnose such infections rapidly would dramatically aid patient survival and outcome and prevent further spreading of the disease. In our proposal we describe a diagnostic solution based on 'single-molecule' fluorescence for the rapid identification of multiple pathogens. We have already established a basic test for the presence of DNA specific to a particular bacterial strain and aim to build on this to develop a range of 'intelligent' biosensors based on Boolean logic and signal amplification. Essentially, such sensors will be able to provide a yes/no answer on pathogen threat level given a combination of target inputs e.g. if (pathogen 1 AND pathogen 2) but (NOT pathogen 3). Our sensors aim to produce a time-to-result on the order of 10-15 min, compared with current technologies that vary between hours and days due to the requirement of sample amplification - either bacterial culturing or DNA amplification. In parallel, we propose to further develop a compact and affordable single-molecule fluorescence microscope to perform such tests. Currently single-molecule microscopes are prohibitive in terms of size and cost; we aim to produce a cut-down version with a footprint of approximately 30cmx50cmx20cm (suitable for benchtop operation) and a small fraction of the cost of the full-size microscopes.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) can be loaded with chemical sensors and sent on missions to conduct high-resolution surveys in the deep sea. They are of interest to the oil and gas industry, as, if fitted with the right sensors, they can be used to help monitor subsea pipelines for leaks and also pinpoint new hydrocarbon reserves under the seafloor by measuring the chemical composition (e.g. the dissolved methane concentration) of the waters above. However, AUVs are prohibitively expensive for routine monitoring and exploration, and often require a large and expensive ship to be present on the surface. A new innovation in AUV technology is the microsub. These miniature AUVs can cost about 2% of the price of a traditional large AUV and are small enough to be launched from a small inflatable boat or the shoreline. They can reach complex areas (shallow waters and reefs) that larger AUVs cannot get to, and can operate in large swarms to efficiently survey a large area. The main drawback of microsubs is that they have limited onboard space and power, meaning that many sensor systems cannot be carried. This means the measurements performed by microsubs are very basic. No methane sensors are currently available that can be deployed on microsubs. At the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, we have developed a new miniaturised methane sensor that could be deployed on microsubs. In this project, we will adapt this sensor to be deployed on ecoSUB, a microsub developed at the NOC in partnership with Planet Ocean. We will work with BP to test the ecoSUB equipped with the methane sensor on demonstration missions, and help BP to change the way in which they perform leak detection and exploration. Detecting leaks early using microsubs will help BP reduce the cost and environmental impact of subsea pipeline leaks. More efficient exploration will reduce the cost environmental impact of searching for new oil and gas reserves.

Glaciers and ice sheets are one of the least explored parts of the Earth's surface, and are now known to harbor significant populations of micro-organisms despite the challenging environmental conditions (e.g. extreme cold, desiccation, freezing and high pressure under ice sheets). Many of these microbes accelerate chemical weathering and supply nutrients to downstream ecosystems. A better knowledge of these processes is widely recognized as important for understanding: 1) global impacts of glaciers/ice sheets on the cycling of carbon and nutrients 2) biodiversity and life in extreme environments (e.g. Antarctic Subglacial Lakes) and 3) water flow beneath ice sheets as inferred from meltwater chemistry. Currently, the toolkits available to glaciologists to advance knowledge in these areas are very limited, and a technological leap is required to engage fully in future science campaigns. Building on previous work, this proposal aims to develop the first generation of compact chemical sensors for use in glaciers and ice sheets. While much of this technology has been evaluated for use in the oceans, it has not been assessed or modified for application in icy environments. We will take this technology and evaluate its performance under icy conditions (e.g. at low temperature, under freeze/thaw, at high pressure and with glacial meltwater sample types). This will be followed by design changes and further testing, culminating in a final demonstration of prototype instruments in Svalbard, Norwegian Arctic. These developments will provide key and rate limiting technology for future glacial science, and will have application in subglacial lake exploration (e.g. Subglacial Lake Ellsworth, Antarctica), in marine under-ice operations (e.g. Autosub under ice), and across a wide range of icy ecosystems where in situ measurements are desirable. This work is a forerunner to high impact international science campaigns requiring the development of purpose-built measuring systems that employ a comprehensive array of chemical sensor (e.g. the Lake Ellsworth Exploration Programme, the 'Basal Conditions on Rutford Ice Stream: Bed Access, Monitoring and Ice Sheet History' (BEAMISH) and the US-funded WISSARD programme, with which we have strong links). It also has strong relevance to water quality monitoring in freshwater environments, which will be explored via collaboration with the Environment Agency, UK.