Understanding European Regional Diversity - Lessons learned from Case Studies

The content of this report is a deliverable to the FP 7 project RUFUS (Rural future Networks) concerning the case studies made within the project. As a deliverable in a EU framework project it reports extensively on the methods and empirical data collected in the project’s case studies. The work has as an overarching motive to translate research findings into implications that are relevant for policy makers in the EU. The conclusions from the case studies are therefore of two types – the findings made and the implications they might give for policy making within the field of rural development

Public opinion on energy crops in the landscape: considerations for the expansion of renewable energy from biomass

Public attitudes were assessed towards two dedicated biomass crops – Miscanthus and Short Rotation Coppice (SRC), particularly regarding their visual impacts in the landscape. Results are based on responses to photographic and computer-generated images as the crops are still relatively scarce in the landscape. A questionnaire survey indicated little public concern about potential landscape aesthetics but more concern about attendant built infrastructure. Focus group meetings and interviews indicated support for biomass end uses that bring direct benefits to local communities. Questions arise as to how well the imagery used was able to portray the true nature of these tall, dense, perennial plants but based on the responses obtained and given the caveat that there was limited personal experience of the crops, it appears unlikely that wide-scale planting of biomass crops will give rise to substantial public concern in relation to their visual impact in the landscape

International Trade in Shark Fins

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Developing scenarios and visualisations to illustrate potential policy and climatic influences on future agricultural landscapes

The future evolution of our agricultural landscapes and countryside is the subject of considerable debate and policy discussion, alongside which is an increasing emphasis on the inclusion of public consultation and participation within planning and decision making systems. However, communicating different proposed policy options in a manner that facilitates informed decisions from stakeholders can be far from straightforward. This is particularly true with more abstract and uncertain issues such as potential impacts of climate change. Scenarios depicting the possible outcomes of policy options provide a useful tool to evaluate the potential consequences of choices. This paper documents an approach to constructing scenarios that can incorporate potential climate change impacts, and reflect the uncertainty in climate change projections due to different environmental policies. It describes the construction of scenarios using the Humberhead Levels in the UK as a case study and portrays the scenarios using two forms of visualisation—digital photo-montage and a real-time landscape model. The method is equally applicable to other study areas across Europe where suitable data are available. Preliminary reactions from an audience to scenario images are discussed, as well as the technical and practical challenges of using visualisation techniques to support decision making

Conservation tillage and soil health: lessons from a 5-year UK farm trial (2013-2018)

In 2010, the UK government launched the Demonstration Test Catchments (DTC) platform to evaluate the extent to which on-farm mitigation measures can cost-effectively reduce the impacts of agricultural water pollution on river ecology whilst maintaining food production capacity. In this paper, we compare the impacts on soil health of two types of conservation tillage (direct drill and shallow non-inversion) against conventional mouldboard ploughing after five years (2013–2018) of adoption within the River Wensum DTC. Across the 143 ha conservation tillage trial area, temporal changes in the physical, chemical and biological condition of the soils were examined through the analysis of 324 soil samples, whilst the impacts on soil water chemistry were assessed through the analysis of 1176 samples of subsurface field drainage. Riverine water pollution was also explored through high-resolution (30 min) hydrochemistry measurements generated by an automated, in-situ bankside monitoring station located 650 m downstream of the trial area. Results revealed that conservation tillage did not significantly alter the soil physical, chemical or biological condition relative to conventional ploughing during the first five years. In addition, conservation tillage did not reduce nutrient leaching losses into field drainage and did not significantly impact upon river water quality, despite the trial area covering 20% of the catchment. Economically, however, conservation tillage yielded net profit margins 13% higher than conventional ploughing after five years of practice due to a combination of operational efficiency savings and improved yields. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate that conservation tillage alone is ineffective at improving the short-term environmental sustainability of farming practices in this lowland intensive arable setting and indicates that a broader, integrated approach to conservation agriculture is required incorporating aspects of cover cropping, crop rotations and precision farming techniques. The improvements in farm business performance do, however, demonstrate land managers can make important financial gains by converting to a conservation tillage system

Energy and Ecosystem Service Impacts

Energy, and access to energy, are essential to human life, civilisation and development. A number of energy issues - including energy security, energy prices and the polluting emissions for energy use - now have high prominence on global agendas of policy and diplomacy. In addressing these and other global energy issues, the purpose of this book is to lay out the broad global energy landscape, exploring how these issues might develop in coming decades, and the implications of such developments for energy policy. There are great uncertainties, which will be identified, in respect of some of these issues, but many of the defining characteristics of the landscape are clear, and the energy policies of all countries will need to be broadly consistent with these if they are to be feasible and achieve their objectives. The book therefore provides information about and analysis of energy and related resources, and the technologies that have been and are being developed to exploit them that is essential to understanding how the global energy system is developing, and how it might develop in the future. But its main focus is the critical economic, social, political and cultural issues that will determine how energy systems will develop and which technologies are deployed, why, by whom, and who will benefit from them. The book has three Parts. Part I sets out the current global context for energy system developments, outlining the essential trends of global energy supply and demand, and atmospheric emissions, from the past and going forward, and their driving forces. Part II explores the options and choices, covering both energy demand and energy supply, facing national and international policymakers as they confront the challenges of the global context outlined in Part I. Part III of the book brings together the discussion in Parts I and II with consideration of possible global energy and environmental futures, and of the energy policy choices which will determine which future actually comes to pas

Learning how to deal with values, frames and governance in sustainability appraisal

The effectiveness of Sustainability Appraisal is highly contested because of the value-based nature of the assumed goal (sustainable development), because effectiveness itself can be determined through different theoretical framings, and because good governance does not guarantee sustainable outcomes. Drawing on learning derived from the literature and a case study examining biomass crop planting on a regional scale in England, an approach for managing the Sustainability Appraisal development and application process is proposed. This incorporates analytic–deliberative techniques as the basis for more pluralism, combined with constraints mapping. Such an approach, it is suggested, can better accommodate multiple framings