24Mar 2016
CEP TO SUPPORT EC ON ASSESSING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE WATER & FLOODS DIRECTIVES

Image: River by Chris Luczkow. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

CEP TO SUPPORT THE Assessment OF THE implementation of the WATER Framework directive AND FLOODS directive for the EUROPEAN COMMISSION 

CEP is part of a consortium, led by WRc, which has recently been awarded a contract to provide technical assistance to the European Commission in assessing EU Member States’ plans under the Water Framework Directive and Floods Directive and their implementation.  This project will involve working closely with the Commission to develop requirements for the provision of information by the Member States, the concepts and approaches to compliance assessment, and then carrying out the assessment of the technical aspects of implementation in Member States.  This work will then be used by the Commission as a basis for the preparation of their reports on the implementation of the two Directives.

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18Mar 2016
CEP at European Environment Agency expert meeting

CEP at European Environment Agency expert meeting

CEP’s Owen White has been invited as an external expert to participate in a European Environment Agency (EEA) forward-looking information and services (FLIS) expert workshop to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark 21-22 March. 

Owen will be presenting a methodology CEP has developed related to downscaling the implications of global megatrends at the national scale.  The method is intended to enable EU member states to identify and prioritise potential implications of global megatrends, link these with national environmental information and indicators, and help identify emerging environmental policy needs.  The workshop will include the inception of national case studies to test and refine the method.

CEP has been contracted to develop this methodology by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) as part of an ongoing project, and under the aegis of the EEA network of environmental foresight experts.  

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16Mar 2016
European Commission publishes 3rd MAES report co-authored by CEP

The European Commission publishes the 3rd Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) report co-authored by CEP

CEP’s Ric Eales and Liza Papadopoulou are contributing authors to the third technical report (2016), just published, taking stock on Mapping and assessing the condition of Europe’s ecosystems: Progress and challenges.

The Biodiversity Strategy outlines a number of targets and precise actions to stop biodiversity loss. By mapping out and assessing the state of ecosystems and their services, we can help inform the policy decisions affecting the environment.

A coherent analytical framework has been developed (see first technical report, 2013) to be applied by the EU and its Member States in order to ensure consistent approaches. A second technical report (2014) proposed indicators that can be used at European and Member State’s level to map and assess biodiversity, ecosystem condition and ecosystem services.

All Member States are actively involved in mapping and assessing the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory. At EU level also, a lot of MAES-related activities are supported by the European Environment Agency and its Topic Centres, the Joint Research Centre, Eurostat, DG Research & Innovation.

More information can be found on the European Commission’s website on MAES or contact Ric Eales.

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16Mar 2016
Clare Twigger-Ross at Defra’s Flood Risk Advisory Group

Image by Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

CEP’s Dr Clare Twigger-Ross at Defra’s Coastal Erosion Risk Management R&D Theme Advisory Group

CEP’s Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is attending the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management R&D Theme Advisory Group organised by Defra. Clare is a member of the Policy, Strategy and Investment Theme Advisory Group. The Advisory Group’s meeting is to discuss the research programme in this area for the coming year and to hear about projects that have completed in this area. It is taking place on 16 March at Birmingham.

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8Mar 2016
CEP supports ecosystems approach for SNH

CEP wins new project to deliver stakeholder workshop and support ecosystems approach-based land use planning

CEP has been commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage to develop and deliver a stakeholder led process that will apply the ecosystems approach to collaborative land use and management in the Pentland Hills Regional Park . Working with land use / management stakeholders in the Park’s Consultative Forum, CEP’s Dr Peter Phillips and Paula Orr will explore the benefits currently provided by the Park, potential drivers of change and practical opportunities to deliver shared values in the long-term. The outputs of this work will inform the forthcoming management plan for the Park.

This project builds on previous work undertaken by CEP in Scotland on land use policy and practice, including the Scottish Land Use Strategy Delivery Evaluation for the Scottish Government and the Evaluation of the Land Use Strategy Forestry Focussed Sub-Regional Pilot Studies for Forestry Commission Scotland.

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3Mar 2016
CEP’s Dr Clare Twigger-Ross at Evaluation of Complexity Workshop

Image: ‘Maze’ by Christina Gallivan on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP’s Dr Clare Twigger-Ross at Evaluation of Complexity workshop

CEP is part of the  consortium of leading UK bodies who have initiated at new national research hub which  will be developing new ways to measure the effectiveness of domestic policies on energy, water, environment and food (the ‘nexus’), and how they affect wider society.

The focus of the Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN) will be to pioneer, test and promote evaluation approaches and methods across the energy, environment and food nexus where complexity presents a challenge to policy interventions, and so contribute to more effective policy-making.

Based at the University of Surrey and launching on 1 March 2016 – prior to a launch event in the summer – CECAN has been backed by £2.45 million of funding provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in collaboration with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra); the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC); the Environment Agency (EA); and the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross from CEP will be attending the inception workshop this week Thursday 10 – Friday 11th March.

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2Mar 2016
Dr Clare Twigger-Ross’s lecture at Kingston University

Image: Kingston University by heart_thrb’s (CC BY 2.0)

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross’s lecture at Kingston University

CEP’s Dr Clare Twigger-Ross gave a lecture to final year undergraduates and MSc students in the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Kingston on 2nd March. Her lecture was titled Community resilience in the context of climate change: focus on flood risk in the UK and forms part of a teaching module on The Challenge of Climate Change.

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29Feb 2016
EEA publishes CEP’s work on ecosystem mapping and assessment

EEA PUBLISHES CEP’S WORK ON ECOSYSTEM MAPPING AND ASSESSMENT

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has just published a report on Mapping and assessing the condition of Europe’s ecosystems: progress and challenges. This report is based on a manuscript drafted by CEP’s Ric Eales and Liza Papadopoulou and synthesises the EEA’s work on ecosystem mapping and assessment over the last few years. The EEA’s approach has built on the work of the Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) initiative and this report will also be published by the European Commission as the 3rd MAES report.

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23Feb 2016
CEP’s evaluation of biodiversity offsetting pilots published

Defra publishes CEP’s evaluation of the biodiversity offsetting pilot scheme in England

Defra has published the final evaluation report by CEP [1] of the Biodiversity Offsetting Pilot Scheme in England that ran from April 2012 to March 2014.

Dr Bill Sheate, CEP’s Project Director for the evaluation said:

We are delighted that Defra has finally published the biodiversity offsetting evaluation report.  We concluded in our evaluation that whilst biodiversity offsetting has the potential to deliver improvements in biodiversity outcomes it will require additional resources and ecological expertise in local authorities to deliver it.  

Where residual biodiversity loss is identified offsetting will increase costs overall for developers compared to current practice. It is likely that it would, at best, deliver only marginal benefits in terms of streamlining the planning process for agreeing compensation for biodiversity loss.

The final report includes supplementary reports on Indicative Costs of Current Compensation Arrangements for Biodiversity Loss: Illustrative Case Studies (Task 4 Report) and A review of recent biodiversity offsetting practice in Germany

 

 

[1] CEP, in association with IEEP, was commissioned to evaluate the biodiversity offsetting pilot scheme between July 2012 and June 2014.  

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23Feb 2016
Self-Assessment tools for catchments

Self-Assessment tools developed by CEP for Catchment Based Approach partnerships

CEP has developed a suite of self-assessment tools for catchment based approach (CaBA) partnerships to enable them to quickly assess how well they are performing in terms of recognised milestones and good practice from around the country. The tools were produced as part of a Defra-funded project to evaluate the second phase of the Catchment based Approach. The tools are available on the Catchment Based Approach website.

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