Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven)
Division of Soil and Water Management
Capacities: The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven), being the 8th European university in the 2007 Leiden ranking, has a rich tradition of teaching and research for almost six centuries. Today, K.U.Leuven is a charter member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and carries out fundamental and applied research in all academic disciplines with a clear international orientation. European surveys rank K.U.Leuven among the top European universities in terms of output: 427 PhD degrees in 2005 (117 for foreign students), 66 spin-off companies, over 3,500 international peer-reviewed publications (2004), 134 granted patents (2001-05). Within the K.U.Leuven, the Division of Soil and Water Management (DSWM) carries out research on different aspects of soil fertility and contaminant behaviour. The group in DSWM, working on environmental aspects, consists of two teaching professors, 4 postdoctoral collaborators, 20 PhD students and 4 technicians. The group has a longstanding experience in the field of environmental microbiology and microbial ecology of polluted environments, as well as in risk assessment and bioavailability studies for different contaminants. The research group is well-equipped for molecular biology (PCR, real-time PCR, epifluorescence microscopy, DGGE), microbial cultivation techniques and chemical analytics (HPLC, GC-FID, IC-O, DOC analyzer, scintillation counter). Easy access exists to sequencing and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy facilities. State of the art soil analytical equipment (ICP-OES, IC) is available and the analytical lab joins QA-QC programmes to validate soil analyses.
Scientific staff at K.U.Leuven involved in training
Key scientific staff for this project at the DSWM are Dirk Springael and Erik Smolders. Dirk Springael has 20 years experience in environmental microbiology research. He was involved in several EU projects dealing with groundwater bioremediation (e.g. AMICO, MULTIBARRIER, SEDBARCAH). His research group of 11 PhD students and 1 post-doc is working on microbial ecology of polluted environments with focus on community responses to pollutants and changing environmental conditions, interactions within microbial consortia, and bioavailability. The research group around Erik Smolders, consisting of 8 PhD students and 2 Post-doctoral researchers, links soil chemistry to bioavailability. This results into models which predict bioavailability with soil properties and which are used in EU risk assessments (REACH) and for regional soil limits. He has been responsible for the risk assessment of Cd for the European Union. Reactive transport modelling (e.g. HYDRUS-1-D) in close interaction with experiments is done to validate the concepts of the models. The foreseen extent of involvement in percent of the full time employment of the K.U.Leuven researchers in the ITN is 10% each.