My work focuses on the restoration of biodiverse and valuable soils in construction projects. Topsoil is a non-renewable resource, which is inevitably lost when paving the way for new infrastructure. Meanwhile, relocating and restoring soil elsewhere can be an environmental compensation measure and contribute to restoring degraded nature.

I did my MSc in Natural Resources Management in biology at NTNU, funded by the interdiciplinary research project GreenMove (2022-2026), supervised by Bente J. Graae and Martijn L. Vandegehuchte. In short, I analyzed the vegetation and topsoil response to topsoil translocation from a road construction site into the urban landscape of Høgskoleparken at NTNU. Not only did the project increase the biodiversity in the park but also saved the majority of local plant species from degradation.

In Green Move, I have one leg at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the other in Department of Biology. Along with my main supervisor Rolf André Bohne and in co-supervision from SINTEF by Hrefna R. Vignisdottir and Katrin Knoth, I analyze the step-by-step impact of soil relocation using life cycle analysis (LCA) in natural ecosystems. The overall goal is to find more sustainable ways to manage soil in infrastructure projects, by reusing soil resources and restoring local plant species both on - and off-site the area of impact.  

Honors/awards:

Best presentation at the "First European PhD and Postdoc Symposium on delivering the future of Infrastructure Research", hosted by the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR), Dublin, Ireland 2024

Best Master thesis in Sustainable development, Faculty of Natural Science, 2023