The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Nuffield student Sofiya involved in coastal erosion research
The role bacteria could play in battling coastal erosion is under the microscope of an Angus teenager.
Pupils from Tayside and Fife are taking part in an Abertay University project that aims to discover more about the threat to coastlines.
Last week the Scottish Government revealed swathes of Scottish coastline, including at Barry Buddon, Broughty Ferry and Montrose, are at severe risk in the next two decades.
A potential £400 million of Scottish developments are in danger from rising sea levels.
Sofiya Zyza, 18, from Brechin High, and Dana Cheung, 16, of Fife’s Glenwood High, are analysing samples from mud flats at Tentsmuir in north-east Fife as part of microbiology analysis work. Carried out in connection with wider coastal erosion exploration at St Andrews University, the project aims to analyse the properties of a bacteria known as pseudomonads.
Unusually, this has been found in sediment at the site.
Research will analyse how the bacteria and other microbes, such as algae, are contributing to cementing sandbanks in the tidal zone.
The team is using high pressure water jets to find out its resistance to wave power.
Dr Andrew Spiers, supervising the project at Abertay with the assistance of visiting student Rebecca Rickart from Germany, explained pseudomonads would more commonly be found in plants and soil than in beach sediment and that was why they merited further investigation.
The pupils are at Abertay as part of a Nuffield research placement and the wider project is looking at coastal erosion in a fuller light including the development of seawall defences.