About Lee
Contracts and clients
Following a seven year career with fisheries and as a freshwater ecologist with the Environment Agency and its predecessor the National Rivers Authority, Lee became freelance in 1997.
Since then a varied suite of contracts has been undertaken for clients including:
- the analysis of aquatic invertebrate samples for various Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales regions;
- water companies, notably extensive analysis of invertebrate samples for Wessex Water, as well as surveys to monitor abstraction licences and effluent discharges using invertebrate and macrophyte methods; invertebrate monitoring of Yorkshire Water’s network of combined storm overflow outfalls; involved in the national pilot scheme for intermittent discharges (storm overflows) monitoring with Welsh Water;
- the assessment (Common Standards Monitoring) of riverine and other aquatic habitat SSSIs using both invertebrate assemblages and floral communities for both Natural England and Scottish Natural Heritage;
- long-term invertebrate monitoring of the Higher Kings paper mill effluent discharge;
- the monitoring of invertebrate communities in watercourses within and adjacent to the Drakelands Tungsten Operation, run by Wolf Minerals, pre-planning and during the construction and working life of this large open cast mine;
- catchment monitoring to provide input to improvements in farm management plans as part of South West Water’s ‘upstream thinking’ approach;
- monitoring of a licensed abstraction as part of the restoration of the Thames-Severn link for the Cotswolds canal Trust;
- conservation assessments for the National Trust;
- and assessments of hydro-electric schemes, quarries, wetland creation schemes and in-channel river restoration works.
In addition to the above, numerous contracts providing pre-works assessments of aquatic invertebrate and floral communities as part of the EIA process for larger consultancies have also been undertaken, with clients including: Jacobs, Ecological Planning and Research, CORMAC, RPS Group, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Arcadis, Devon Wildlife Consultants, Hyder Consulting, Aluco Ecology, Michel Hughes Associates, MD Ecology, Cornwall Environmental Consultants, Tamar Ecology, The Landmark Practice, Woodfield Ecology, Titan Environmental Surveys, Cresswell Associates and Panscape Environmental Consultancy.
Widely engaged in research into groundwater and subterranean invertebrate fauna and has authored/co-authored over 25 papers and articles on this topic. Instrumental in the designation of the endemic groundwater shrimp Niphargus glenniei as a BAP species in 2007 and the designation of Pen Park Hole as a SSSI, the first in Britain in which its invertebrate community, as well as unique geology were include in the citation. National co-ordinator for the hypogean Crustacea Recording Scheme.
