Horizon scanning and futures: Challenges to the UK can be varied and diverse, ranging from manmade deliberate actions by foreign states to naturally occurring events such as flooding, soil erosion and so on. Assessment of current and future challenges will need to be combined with risk management approaches

Background

Defra’s areas of responsibility cover a wide range of interacting natural and human systems. Changes that affect one outcome are often likely to have knock-on implications for others. Policy in areas such as land management, biodiversity conservation, pollution prevention, food security, fisheries, and waste management, need to be designed in the absence of perfect knowledge of how human and natural processes interact. It can be particularly difficult to attribute cause and effect in such complex systems where evidence is often partial and fragmented.

Consideration of the issues that Defra deals with as parts of systems, i.e. in terms of relationships between the parts can help us to unpick complex or seemingly chaotic situations, and better deliver robust positive outcomes for society. To facilitate more effective decision making, a range of approaches and specialties need to be applied to the above challenges.

Next steps

Get in touch with ari.comment@go-science.gov.uk

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

DEFRA Research and innovation interests GOVUK

Related UKRI funded projects