Dr Sarah Johnson

I am a Research Fellow at the School of Geography Geology and the Environment. I specialise in using remote sensing and geospatial data to look at a variety of ways that humans interaction with their environment. Topics I have worked on over the years include land cover, flooding, agriculture and pastoralism, and most recently I have worked on exploring the links between greenspace and health. Moving further into health topics, I am currently employed on BRC funded research looking at the link between patient sleep and environmental exposures in hospital wards. I joined the University of Leicester in 2014 after many years working in the commercial geospatial services industry and have 30 years’ experience working in remote sensing and geospatial topics. I have strong interests in building interdisciplinary partnerships with academic and non-academic partners working on scientific activities as well as on socially relevant topics with social scientists.

Musto L, Gellatly C, Jephcote C, Adams K, Finch S, Johnson S, Saratzis A, Bown M, Hansell AL; UKAGS Investigators and Collaborators. Role of Outdoor Air Pollution, Noise Pollution, and Green Exposure on Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Progression. Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg. 2026 Jan 23:S1078-5884(26)00067-5. doi: 10.1016/j.ejvs.2026.01.031. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41581750.

Havyarimana, E., Gangrekar, R., Gong, X., Jephcote, C., Johnson, S., Suri, S., Xie, W., Clark, C., Hansell, A.L., Cai, Y.S., Associations between road, rail and aircraft traffic noise with cognitive function in the UK Biobank cohort, Environment International, Volume 206, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2025.109941.

Havyarimana, E., Gong, X., Jephcote, C., Johnson, S., Suri, S., Xie, W., Clark, C., Hansell, A.L., Cai, Y.S., Residential exposure to road and railway traffic noise and incidence of dementia: The UK Biobank cohort study, Environmental Research, Volume 279, Part 1, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2025.121787.

Cole, B.; Smith, G.; de la Barreda-Bautista, B.; Hamer, A.; Payne, M.; Codd, T.; Johnson, S.C.M.; Chan, L.Y.; Balzter, H. (2022), "Dynamic Landscapes in the UK Driven by Pressures from Energy Production and Forestry — Results of the CORINE Land Cover Map 2018". Land, 11, 192. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11020192.

Modugno, S., Johnson, S.C.M., Borrelli, P., Alam, E., Bezak, N., Balzter, H., (2022), “Analysis of human exposure to landslides with a GIS multiscale approach”, Natural Hazards, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-05186-7 

Charteris, A.F., Harris, P., Marsden, K.A., Harris, I.M., Guo, Z.,  Beaumont, D.A., Taylor, H., Sanfratello, G., Jones, D.L., Johnson, S.C.M., Whelan, M.J., Howden, N., Sint, H., Chadwick, D.R., Cárdenasa, L.M., (2021), “Within-field spatial variability of greenhouse gas fluxes from an extensive and intensive sheep-grazed pasture”, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2021.107355 

Zhu, Y., Li, X., Pearson, S., Wu, D., Sun, R., Johnson, S., Wheeler, J., Fang, S., (2019), "Evaluation of Fengyun-3C Soil Moisture Products Using In-Situ Data from the Chinese Automatic Soil Moisture Observation Stations: A Case Study in Henan Province", China, Water, 11(2), 248. 

Rivas Casado, M., Irvine, T., Johnson, S., Palma, M., Leinster, P., (2018), "The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to estimate direct tangible losses to residential properties from flood events: a case study of Cockermouth following the Desmond storm", Remote Sensing, 10(10), 1548.

Bebe, B.O., Johnson, S.C.M., Recha, C., Ochieng, R., Riamit, S.K. and Upton, C., (2017), "Resilient pastoralism: towards sustainable futures in Kenyan rangelands", Nature and Faune, 31(2), 36-38.

Ningthoujam, R.K.; Balzter, H.; Tansey, K.; Morrison, K.; Johnson, S.C.; Gerard, F.; George, C.; Malhi, Y.; Burbidge, G.; Doody, S.; Veck, N.; Llewellyn, G.M.; Blythe, T.; Rodriguez-Veiga, P.; van Beijma, S.; Spies, B.; Barnes, C.; Padilla-Parellada, M.; Wheeler, J.E.; Louis, V.; Potter, T.; Edwards-Smith, A.; Bermejo, J.P., (2016), "Airborne S-Band SAR for Forest Biophysical Retrieval in Temperate Mixed Forests of the UK". Remote Sensing, 8(7), 609.

Ningthoujam, R.K., Tansey, K., Balzter, H., Morrison, K., Johnson, S.C.M., Gerard, F., George, C., Burbidge, G., Doody, S., Veck, N., Llewellyn, G.M., Blythe, T., (2016), "Mapping Forest Cover and Forest Cover Change with Airborne S-Band Radar". Remote Sensing, 8(7), 577.

Comber, A., Balzter, H., Cole, B., Fisher, P., Johnson, S.C.M., Ogutu, B., (2016), "Methods to Quantify Regional Differences in Land Cover Change", Remote Sensing, 8(3), 176.

Comber, A., Davies, H., Pinder, D., Whittow, J.B., Woodhall, A. and Johnson, S.C.M., (2016), "Mapping Coastal Land Use Changes 1965-2014: Methods for Handling Historical Thematic Data", Transaction of the Institute of British Geographers.