Questions from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs:
Measuring change
What is the status of our natural environment, is it being effectively monitored to note change in the UK and globally? We require robust, reliable data and information that can be used to assess status and trends in the natural environment (genetic and species diversity and trends, invasive species, habitats extent, condition and character, as well as soils and ecosystem services and functions)
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Environmental monitoring and data science
Molecular biology: The ongoing evolution in the costs, speed, and ease of DNA measurements will allow entirely new approaches to complement traditional biodiversity monitoring and increase understanding of ecosystems, biodiversity, diseases, and other aspects of the environment
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Environmental monitoring and data science
Consistent and long-term environmental monitoring: Time-series increase in value for ecology and policy making as they grow in length. Decades of data are required to answer emerging questions around, for example, climate change impacts on biodiversity and the efficacy of management measures
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Systems and futures
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
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Systems and futures
How can we best develop an inclusive societal vision for a just transition towards sustainability? At what spatial scale should such visions be developed and how to reconcile across scales? How can we best manage the polycentric governance to implement these visions?
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Systems and futures
Development of systems approaches that can be used to inform policymaking. This includes approaches to provide insights into complex systems, identify points of intervention, account for multiple perspectives, and frame policy decisions
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Behavioural and social science
What do we know about the public acceptability of necessary restrictions such as counter disease measures? What lessons are applicable from public acceptability of the coronavirus restrictions to the animal and plant health domain?
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Behavioural and social science
How will different groups of society, particularly in rural communities, be affected by changes associated with the move towards Net Zero and the goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan? How can positive effects be adopted more widely and negative impacts be mitigated?
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021
Behavioural and social science
Which techniques are best for estimating the effects of interacting risks? How do we ensure that communication of risk is relevant and effective? What lessons can we take from the response to the coronavirus pandemic about the communication of risk and of the need for behavioural change?
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2021