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Living With Environmental Change Mary Barkham LWEC Deputy Director Understanding Society Workshop 27January 2011 www.lwec.org.uk The LWEC partnership Ensure that decision makers in government, business and society have the knowledge, tools and foresight to mitigate, adapt to and benefit from environmental change LWEC brings together 22 UK organisations funding, undertaking and using environmental research to accelerate the delivery of research on environmental change into policy, business and society How LWEC delivers Partnership, coordination, alignment • • • • Research funders and policy users : 22 partners Business advisors : key industry sectors and FTSE100 companies £600m commitment since 2008 launch : target £1bn in 5 years Common research objectives : co-design, co-produce, co-deliver Aligning activities Flooding, Ecosystems, Water Observations Agreeing priorities Natural hazards & humanitarian aid Biodiversity, environment &health Ocean Acidification Geoengineering Developing partnerships Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme : NERC, Met Office National Ecosystem Assessment : Defra, SG, others Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation : DfID, ESRC, NERC Behaviour and Risk Centres : ESRC, DEFRA, SG and others… Low Carbon Communities Challenge A 2-year research programme to look at the best ways to help people cut their carbon emissions, involving 22 communities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, led by DECC. Energy use data- baseline and historic trends of domestic and non-domestic energy use in buildings in each of the communities. Socio-economic and environmental behaviour data: a before and after household survey across the communities - to capture information on the wider impacts of the Challenge. Living With Environmental Change partners Department of Energy and Climate Change, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department for Communities and Local Government, Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, Economic & Social Research Council, Welsh Assembly Government, Northern Ireland Executive, plus Sciencewise & Cabinet Office Office for Civil Society Total investment: £11 million LWEC challenges • Climate : exploring the potential impacts of climate change to inform mitigation and adaptation policies •Ecosystems : managing ecosystem services for human well being & to protect the natural environment in a changing world •Sustainability : developing a comprehensive programme to help deliver water security • Health challenge : providing foresight of the threat of new and emerging infectious diseases and how they can be rapidly identified • Infrastructure : supporting the design and construction of urban systems that are more resilient to climate change • Society : understanding how people respond to risk and make decisions in a changing environment Strategic Framework •Being developed for each of the 6 challenges •Will consider needs of government, business and society •Will look at current capabilities and how needs can be jointly addressed Workshop today will help inform the Societal strategic framework Societal Challenge • Political economy & decision-making • Economic & environmental change • Fairness and equality • Risk, conflict & security • Behaviour change, communication & engagement • Human well-being & social impacts • Transformations Environmental Information •Environmental Information Framework •Research database •UK Environmental Observation Framework Environmental Information Framework A step change in the volume and quality of UK public sector environmental data and information available to users. Collect once, publish once, use many times www.environment.data.gov.uk www.EnvironmentalResearch.info Simple project search Search menu options Simple project search – sample search and summary results Observation Activity Catalogue www.ukeof.org.uk Assessing Socio-economic Observation Needs • UKEOF- info on environmental observations taken for or by the UK • Need to broaden to include socio-economic data to take into account the impact and consequences of human behaviour • Need to facilitate the interchange between natural science and socio-economic datasets to address real world issues and promote interdisciplinary approaches Key data sets identified • ONS Census • National Travel Survey • Monitor on engagement with natural environment survey • Supermarket shopping data • Land use statistics • UK land cover map • Public health statistics • Hospital Episode Data • ONS Labour Force Survey • DWP data on employment etc • Understanding Society: UK Longitudinal Household Survey Fostering inter-disciplinary working • Building communities of practice • Workshops to discuss datasets by social and natural scientists to look at access and potential use • Adding socio-economic metadata to UKEOF catalogue with links to data repositories • Written guidance to help users understand the value of joining data sets and provide examples of analyses and applications Living With Environmental Change www.lwec.org.uk www.ukeof.org.uk www.environmentalresearch.info www.lwec.org.uk