PhD research student

Project: The role of Scotland’s inland waters in promoting blue-health in rural communities

email: c.w.mcdougall@stir.ac.uk
Twitter: @CraigMcDougall_

Water bodies or “blue spaces” offer a range of health and well-being benefits, recently termed “blue-health” benefits. Blue-health research has predominantly focused on coastal settings, with only a handful of studies considering inland water bodies.

This studentship will adopt a range of quantitative and qualitative methods, with significant community and stakeholder engagement, to understand the importance of inland water bodies to rural communities across Scotland.

Project objectives:

• To investigate the socio-economic importance of inland water bodies in Scotland
• To determine how perceptions of health and well-being benefits associated with inland waters vary across different water-user communities
• To explore how variations in water quality can impact the provision of “blue-health” benefits from inland waters

PhD funded through the Hydro Nation Scholars Programme

More about me:

I am a Hydro Nation Scholar and current PhD student within the ESHH research group. Prior to undertaking a PhD, I obtained a B.Sc. (Hons) in Environmental Management from Glasgow Caledonian University. My undergraduate research focused on access to green space in urban areas and more specifically, green space accessibility for children. After graduating, I worked for an environmental testing company as an air emissions analyst.