xiaoxian zhang

Science

Dr Xiaoxian Zhang

Soil Scientist

Sustainable Soils and Crops

PUBLICATIONS
Location
Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, AL5 2JQ
Tel
+44 (0) 1582 938 118
Email
xiaoxian.zhang@rothamsted.ac.uk
Professional Platforms
ORCID
ResearchGate

Biography

Xiaoxian obtained his first and postgraduate degrees in civil engineering and has spent the past two decades developing numerical models. He has a broad range of interests, including simulating soil processes, plant hormones, and modelling microbial and hydrogen fuel cells. His main work at Rothamsted Research is soil-plant-microbe interaction, in which he uses tomography and modelling to investigate fluid flow, nutrient transport and microbial activity at the scale of a few microns. He then develops methodology to scale up these pore-scale processes to plot and catchment scales. Most of his work is seminal. He has pioneered a variety of models to simulate transport processes and electrochemical/biochemical reactions in aggregated porous media. He also works on the rhizosphere; using tomography and numerical modelling, he has developed methods to calculate the hydraulic properties of soil around roots at scales of less than 100 microns and then to quantify how far the rhizosphere can develop. His current research focuses on integrating pore-scale models for fluid flow and nutrient transport with the genome-scale metabolic network model to simulate metabolism flows in soil. This will substantially improve our understanding of how soil microorganisms and the associated nutrient cycling respond to changes in management and climate.

Strategic Programme

  • Soil 2 Nutrition (S2N)

PhD Projects

  • Modelling soil self-organization
  • Modelling Biological Hotspots in Soil: how do they

Awards

  • 1999 - PhD in Civil Engineering, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne
  • 1986 - Master in Engineering, Wuhan University (former Wuhan Institute of Hydraulic and Electrical Engineering)
  • 1983 - Bachelor in Geology, Hebei University of Geology

Measures of Esteem

  • Editorial board: Journal of Integrative Agriculture
  • External examiner of PhD thesis: University of Birmingham
  • University of Manchester, University of Sydney
  • Adjunct Senior Research Scientist: Farmland Irrigation Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences