Aquatic research
The Department’s aquatic research supports related UEF’s strategic emerging research area. Aquatic research of the Department has a notably productive publication activity, and includes fields of aquatic ecology, large lakes research, aquatic ecotoxicology, aquatic physiology, aquatic chemistry, as well as environmental informatics and modeling on aquatic field. Understanding and solving, for example, human-activity-associated problems in aquatic environments constitutes a key challenge, as many environmental problems culminate in aquatic systems and organisms. Globally and locally, the ecological state of many aquatic environments and the sufficiency of clean water resources are at risk due to, for example, mining and industrial activities, and municipal waste loads. Sustainable and comprehensive management of water ecosystems calls for a fundamental understanding of aquatic biology, and high-level application and integrated development of related aquatic fields.
The Department’s aquatic research focuses on the basic biology of the aquatic environment and aquatic organisms, water chemistry, as well as water-related safety aspects. Many of the projects aim to understand environmental problems in aquatic ecosystems, and to provide information for the development of technologies to solve these problems.
Aerosol research
Aerosol research at the Department belongs to top-level international research area at UEF, “Aerosols, climate change and human health”. A unique feature of the research on air pollutants is the interdisciplinary approach connected to air pollution and health related toxicological studies. It combines the physic-chemical and toxicological characterization of fine and nanoparticles aiming at a holistic understanding of the causative constituents activating harmful health effects. The joint approach of Fine particle and aerosol technology and Inhalation toxicology research groups form the core of this research at the Department. In deep collaboration with the aerosol research groups at Department of Applied Physics they share a state-of-the-art infrastructure at Kuopio campus as well as extensive national and international collaboration networks. Moreover, aerosol research on cleantech applications utilizing the functional materials synthesis pilot facilities and occupational and indoor environments supports this field in development of the bioaerosol research and testing facility.
Biology of Environmental Change
The research area of Biology of Environmental Change brings together the expertise from plant ecophysiology and ecology, environmental ecology, and plant biotechnology, biogeochemistry, animal ecology, and environmental biology of social insects (belonging to Forests, global change and bio-economy, top-level international research area at UEF and to Environmental change and sufficiency of natural resources, one of 4 global challenges to be addressed by UEF).
Rapidly changing environment is one of the most difficult global challenges today affecting humans, plants and animals from cell to ecosystem level, particularly in the northern ecosystems. This research area focuses on global change effects on the function of boreal and arctic ecosystems, particularly on acclimation mechanisms of trees, carbon and nutrient dynamics, plant-soil interactions, and ecosystem adaptation to environmental stress. This includes greenhouse gas and other important gas dynamics, the biosphere-atmosphere feedback mechanisms, and climate feedback modelling.
The state-of-the-art infrastructures at both campuses allow multidisciplinary research on acute environmental problems related to terrestrial ecosystems. We have plant exposure facilities for global environmental stresses (warming, drought, increased UV-radiation, elevated ozone levels) in natural open-field conditions. This approach is complemented with plant growth chamber facilities with adjustable temperature, light, humidity, and CO2 conditions. The analytical facilities include fully equipped laboratories for plant chemistry and metabolomics, special gas flux devises, e.g. eddy covariance for CO2 and N2O, isotope ratio mass spectrometer and novel spectral imaging laboratory.
Biogeochemistry research belongs to the Nordic center of excellence (DEFROST) with a collaboration to The Academy of Finland’s Centre of Excellence (AFCoE) in Atmospheric Science - From Molecular and Biological processes to The Global Climate.
Radiation and Chemical Risks
Research on radiation and chemicals is conducted by several research groups of the Department. The research is multidisciplinary and includes various approaches for assessing environmental and occupational exposures (measurements, modelling) as well as experimental and epidemiological studies to assess adverse effects on humans and other organisms. It covers both impacts on ecosystems and health effects.
Our cancer-related research is part of “Translational cancer research”, one of the advanced-level, strong research areas of UEF, as defined in UEF Strategy. The Department hosts one of the world’s leading groups in research on the health effects of non-ionizing radiation (electromagnetic fields). Research on ionizing radiation has focused on radioecology and on “new” radiobiological phenomena, particularly induced genomic instability. Research on chemicals is carried out in several research groups at the Department, and it includes studies on environmental pollution and remediation, human exposure, assessment of human health effects, as well as ecotoxicology and effects on wildlife. An important infrastructure is the new Laboratory of Radiobiology in collaboration with the Cancer Center of the Kuopio University Hospital. This infrastructure is unique and creates a basis for a leading national position in both environmental health-related and radiotherapy-related radiobiological research.