Dr Liping Pang, PhD (Civil Eng.)

Senior Groundwater Scientist
Christchurch Science Centre

Liping joined ESR in August 1994 after working for Environment BOP (formerly the Bay of Plenty Regional Council) for two years as an environmental scientist. Liping obtained her PhD in Civil Engineering from Canterbury University, her MSc (first-class honours) in Earth Science from Waikato University and her Bachelor of Engineering from China. Before she came to New Zealand in 1989, she worked as an Environmental Engineer involved in environmental impact assessments of industrial wastes on groundwater quality.  

Research Interests:

• Experimental investigations and modelling contaminant transport and attenuation in subsurface media
• Processes, mechanisms and modelling of colloid-facilitated contaminant transport
• Setback distances and groundwater protection zones
• Impact of land-use change on groundwater quality
• Media heterogeneity and preferential flow
• Analytical solutions and temporal moment analysis for contaminant transport problems
• Environmental impact assessments of liquid and solid wastes on groundwater quality
• Evaluation of regional groundwater quality
• Investigation of groundwater contamination

Research involvement:

• Determination of microbial removal rates for a wide range of subsurface media (soils, vadose zone and aquifers) from published studies of field experiments and large intact soil cores.
• Contamination of groundwater by pathogens from burial of animal carcasses and offal
• Colloid-facilitated virus transport in heterogeneous aquifer media. Leading a $660K 3-year Marsden project funded by NZ Royal Society “Virus hitchhikers - Do colloids facilitate the rapid transport of viruses to our drinking water wells?” in collaboration with Professor Keith Hunter (University of Otago), Professor Jirka Simunek (University of California, Riverside), and Professor Markus Flury (Washington State University).
• Bacteria-facilitated cadmium transport in alluvial gravel aquifers (use HYDRUS colloid-facilitated contaminant model).
• Modelling microbial transport in selected New Zealand soils under dairy-shed effluent irrigation, in collaboration with LandCare Research .
• Modelling the effect of irrigation on bacterial leaching, in collaboration with Lincoln University.
• Modelling the cumulative impact of septic tank systems on groundwater quality (nitrate and microbes) using HYDRUS-2D/3D.
• Determination of setback distances of septic tank systems in different aquifer systems and soil media.
• Delineation of groundwater protection zones of public water supply springs in fractured volcanic aquifer system in Rotorua District .
• Filtration and transport of microbes and micro-spheres in gravel and pumice sand aquifers.
• Modelling leaching of pesticides through soils and into groundwater in 7 NZ field trials using HYDRUS-2D and 1D.
• Attenuation and transport of heavy metals and pesticides in alluvial gravels, pumice sand and coastal sand aquifer systems.
• Physical and chemical nonequilibrium processes in heterogenous media.
• Modelling scale-dependent dispersion process using a scale-dependent dispersion model.
• Temporal moment analysis for transport with interplay of sorption and degradation.
• Study of transport processes using artificial sand aquifers (10m x 5m x 3.5m) using Visual MODFLOW.
• Determination of preferential flow paths using resin bag method.

Supervision of PhD students:

• 2006-2009: Gillian Walshe, on colloid-facilitated virus transport in alluvial gravel aquifer media. Department of Chemistry, University of Otago, New Zealand.
• 2004-2007: Shuang Jiang, on bacteria transport through intact soil lysimeters from irrigation of dairy-shed effluent. Soil Science, Lincoln University, New Zealand.

Professional Recognition:
 

• 2009-2012: Guest Lecturer, Doctoral programme in Engineering Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Vienna University of Technology
• 2009: Invited Speaker, 1st International Conference on Microbial Transport and Survival in Porous Media, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, 10-13 May 2009
• 2008: Recipient of Germany-NZ ISAT Bi-lateral Relations Grant, NZ Royal Society
• 2006: Keynote Speaker (on bacteria-facilitated cadmium transport), INTERURBAN II, Water and Organic Matter in Anthropogenic Soils: Dynamics and Processes. Berlin, March 29-31, 2006
• 2006-2009: Recipient of Marsden research grant, NZ Royal Society.
• 2006-2009: Honorary Fellow, Department of Chemistry, University of Otago, New Zealand, 1 March 2006 – 28 Feb. 2009.
• 2006: Science Excellence Award, Institute of Environmental Science & Research Ltd.
• 2002: Shortlist for Science Excellence Award, ESR Ltd.
• 1999: Shortlist for Science Excellence Award, ESR Ltd.
• 1995: Study Award, ESR Ltd.
• Referee for proposals submitted USA National Science Foundation, United States-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, and many international journals

Current Membership in Professional Organisations:

• American Geophysical Union
• International Water Association
• New Zealand Hydrological Society

Publications