Babatunde Anifowose

Dr Anifowose has expert knowledge and experience in environmental sustainability and project performance evaluation through EIA as a planning tool for sustainable development and management of environmental problems. He is also interested in climate change issues (e.g. methane emissions from oil and gas facilities) and seasonal variation in river flow, hydraulic geometry principle, oil and gas transportation, GIS and environmental remote sensing. Given his computing/data processing background, Babatunde is keenly interested in the evolving research sub-discipline that deals with the applicability of digital technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning etc.) in EIA processes. Dr Anifowose is an invited peer-reviewer for a number of Elsevier Journals. He has been privileged to advise on an externally-funded project on oil spills and hydro-environmental implications; and, also served as specialist adviser to the CSC on the quality of scholarship applicants and their suitability for UK post-doctoral fellowships in the field of Environmental Science relating to oil pollution. He is a professional member of the British Hydrological Society (with the Institution of Civil Engineers), the Society of Petroleum Engineers (HSSE and Sustainable Development Technical Discipline), the Energy Institute, and has been a friend of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the US National Academies of Science’s committee on Transportation of Hazardous Materials – AT040 since 2008. Dr Anifowose is a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and a member of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Associate Peer Review College. He is on the Board of Directors of Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Sustainable Development Technical Section and serves as its Administrative Chair.

My research work experience dates back more than 20 years ago (year 2000-2001) on a World Bank commissioned project on Rural Travels and Rural Transport Infrastructure in the riverine areas of selected oil producing communities in Nigeria’s Niger- Delta. This project did inspire my research vision through the years and has further provoked the quest for greater understanding of why, despite the implementation of environmental assessment protocols, environmental problems persist. This is crucial since the on-boarding of a 100% renewable energy to service key sectors of the global economy (i.e. power generation, transport, building & industry) is hindered by the current lack of mature technologies to cost-effectively replace those conventional ones built more than 200 years ago. Therefore, to support the energy transition, oil and gas exploitation has to proceed with sustainable development at the core of the business. My vision is to ensure that sustainability is engrained into project planning and execution through the EIA protocol linked to EMP and EMS (e.g. ISO 14001) by addressing current knowledge gaps. For example, research evidence supported by existing literature shows that very little is known about key environmental receptors in locations where oil and gas activities currently take place. My research hopes to further advance our knowledge of the process regimes of key hydro-environmental parameters (e.g. Q, m³ s^-1; H, m; V, m s^-1; X-Sectional Area, m; SSC, mg L^-1; wind, m s^-1; salinity & temp.) surrounding major oil and gas infrastructure and their location-specific influence on oil behaviour which should ideally inform oil spill response and impact mitigation. My experience and literature evidence show that real-time response to oil pollution has been ineffective partly due to limited understanding of these parameters, especially in places where methodical data collection is erratic or at times non-existent.