Graham Merrington, PhD is a Director at wca. He has more than 20 years experience of terrestrial risk assessment, waste regulation, and the fate, behaviour and effects of metals and other inorganic contaminants in the environment.

After receiving a BSc in Environmental Science and a PhD in the environmental behaviour of metals at historic mine sites from the University of London, Graham took up a post-doctoral research position at the Department of Soil Science, University of Reading, UK. His research activities were directed towards assessing the fate and behaviour of metals in contaminated soils and wastes, specifically in relation to the influence of organic carbon.

From the University of Reading, Graham moved to Bournemouth in 1994, where he was a Lecturer in Environmental Chemistry and teamed up with colleagues to look at the transfer of metals through terrestrial food chains, specifically the soil-plant-insect linkage.

In 1998 Graham took up a position at Adelaide University in Australia as a Lecturer in Soil Chemistry, where he continued his work on metal behaviour with colleagues at CSIRO.

Graham joined wca from the Environment Agency of England and Wales where for five years he led an R&D Programme focused on Environmental Quality Standards in soils, waters and sediments. Key projects included the incorporation of Biotic Ligand Models into compliance assessment for regulators, the implementation and use of ecologically based soil standards for metals, and the derivation of soil quality indicators to assess sustainable land management. He has also represented the UK at Expert Groups for the Water Framework Directive and was a regular attendee as an expert for metals related issues at European Commission TCNES.

Graham has written or co-authored more than 50 scientific publications focussing on the behaviour and fate of metals in terrestrial and aquatic systems. More recently he has written EU guidance on the regulatory implementation of bioavailablity-based EQS for metals.