Stakeholder engagement in sustainable housing refurbishment in the UK

The UK government is committed to effectively implement a viable sustainable agenda in the social housing sector. To this end housing associations and local authorities are being encouraged to improve the environmental performance of their new and existing homes. Whilst much attention has been focused on new housing (e.g. the Code for Sustainable Homes) little effort has been focussed on improving the 3.9 (approx) million homes maintained and managed by the public sector (in England), which, given the low rate of new build and demolition (<1% in England), will represent approximately 70% of the public housing stock in 2050. Thus, if UK is to achieve sustainable public housing the major effort will have to focus on the existing stock. However, interpreting the sustainability agenda for an existing housing portfolio is not a straight foreword activity. In addition to finding a ‘technical’ solution, landlords also haveto address the socio-economic issues that balance quality of expectations of tenants with the economic realities of funding social housing refurbishment. This paper will report the findings of a qualitative study (participatory approach) that examined the processes by which a large public landlord sought to develop a long-term sustainable housing strategy. Through a series of individual meetings and group workshops the research team identified: committed leadership; attitudes towards technology; social awareness; and collective understanding of the sustainability agenda as key issues that the organisation needed to address in developing a robust and defendable refurbishment strategy. The paper concludes that the challenges faced by the landlord in improving the sustainability of their existing stock are not primarily technical, but socio-economic. Further, while the economic challenges: initial capital cost; lack of funding; and pay-back periods can be overcome, if the political will exists, by fiscal measures; the social challenges: health & wellbeing; poverty; security; space needs; behaviour change; education; and trust; are much more complex in nature and will require a coordinated approach from all the stakeholders involved in the wider community if they are to be effectively addressed. The key challenge to public housing landlords is to develop mechanisms that can identify and interpret the complex nature of the social sustainability agenda in a way that reflects local aspirations (although the authors believe the factors will exist in all social housing communities, their relative importance is likely to vary between communities) whilst addressing Government agendas

Understanding drivers of species distribution change: a trait-based approach

The impacts of anthropogenic environmental change on biodiversity are well documented, with threats such as habitat loss and climate change identified as causes of change in species distributions. The high degree of variation in responses of species to environmental change can be partly explained through comparative analyses of species traits. I carried out a phylogenetically informed trait-based analysis of plant range change in Britain, discovering that traits associated with competitive ability and habitat specialism both explained variation in range changes. Competitive, habitat generalists out-perform ed species specialised to nutrient-poor conditions; a result which can be attributed to the impact of agricultural intensification in Britain. A limitation of the comparative approach is that the models do not directly test the impact of environmental change on species distribution patterns, but instead infer potential impacts. I tested the potential of comparative analyses from a spatial context by conducting a spatial analysis of plant distribution change in Britain, examining the direct impact of environmental change on the spatial distribution of the trait characteristics of species that have gone locally extinct. I discovered a loss of species associated with nitrogen poor soils in regions that had an increase in arable land cover, a result that supports the results from the trait-based analysis of plant range change and demonstrates that comparative studies can accurately infer drivers of distribution change. I found that the cross-region transferability of trait-based models of range change to be related to land cover similarity, highlighting that the trait-based approach is dependent on a regional context. Additionally, I discovered that traits derived from distribution data were significant predictors of range shift across many taxonomic groups, out-performing traditional life history traits. This thesis highlights the potential of the data accumulated through the increased public participation in biological recording to address previously unanswerable ecological research questions.Open Acces

Sustainable Development Indicator Frameworks and Initiatives

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Production Economics,

Assessment of check dams’ role in flood hazard mapping in a semi-arid environment

This study aimed to examine flood hazard zoning and assess the role of check dams as effective hydraulic structures in reducing flood hazards. To this end, factors associated with topographic, hydrologic and human characteristics were used to develop indices for flood mapping and assessment. These indices and their components were weighed for flood hazard zoning using two methods: (i) a multi-criterion decision-making model in fuzzy logic and (ii) entropy weight. After preparing the flood hazard map by using the above indices and methods, the characteristics of the change‐point were used to assess the role of the check dams in reducing flood risk. The method was used in the Ilanlu catchment, located in the northwest of Hamadan province, Iran, where it is prone to frequent flood events. The results showed that the area of ‘very low’, ‘low’ and ‘moderate’ flood hazard zones increased from about 2.2% to 7.3%, 8.6% to 19.6% and 22.7% to 31.2% after the construction of check dams, respectively. Moreover, the area of ‘high’ and ‘very high’ flood hazard zones decreased from 39.8% to 29.6%, and 26.7% to 12.2%, respectively

An acoustic view of ocean mixing

Knowledge of the parameter K (turbulent diffusivity/"mixing intensity") is a key to understand transport processes of matter and energy in the ocean. Especially the almost vertical component of K across the ocean stratification (diapycnal diffusivity) is vital for research on biogeochemical cycles or greenhouse gas budgets. Recent boost in precision of water velocity data that can be obtained from vessel-mounted acoustic instruments (vmADCP) allows identifying ocean regions of elevated diapycnal diffusivity during research cruises - in high horizontal resolution and without extra ship time needed. This contribution relates acoustic data from two cruises in the Tropical North East Atlantic Oxygen Minimum Zone to simultaneous field observations of diapycnal diffusivity: pointwise measurements by a microstructure profiler as well as one integrative value from a large scale Tracer Release Experiment

Proposing a life cycle land use impact calculation methodology

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) community is yet to come to a consensus on a methodology to incorporate land use in LCA, still struggling with what exactly should be assessed and which indicators should be used. To solve this problem we start from concepts and models describing how ecosystems function and sustain, in order to understand how land use affects them. Earlier our research group presented a methodology based on the ecosystem exergy concept. This concept as based on the hypothesis that ecosystems develop towards more effective degradation of exergy fluxes passing through the system and is derived from two axioms: the principles of (i) maximum exergy storage and the (ii) maximum exergy dissipation. This concept aiming at the area of protection natural environment is different from conventional exergy analysis in LCA focusing on natural resources. To prevent confusion, the ecosystem exergy concept is further referred to as the MAximum Storage and Dissipation concept (MASD concept). In this paper we present how this concept identifies end-point impacts, mid-point impacts and mid-point indicators. The identified end-point impacts to assess are Ecosystem Structural Quality (ESQ) and Ecosystem Functional Quality (EFQ). In order to quantify these end-point impacts a dynamic multi-indicator set is proposed for quantifying the mid-point impacts on soil fertility, biodiversity and biomass production (quantifying the ESQ) and soil structure, vegetation structure and on-site water balance (quantifying the EFQ). Further we present an impact calculation method suitable for different environmental assessment tools and demonstrate the incorporation of the methodology in LCA