CEP to research how to measure recovery from extreme weather events

CEP HAS RECENTLY BEEN AWARDED A NEW PROJECT TO HELP CLIMATEXCHANGE UNDERSTAND HOW TO MEASURE RECOVERY FROM EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS .

ClimateXchange has commissioned Collingwood Environmental Planning (CEP), in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, to undertake research to help develop an approach to monitoring recovery from extreme weather events, including flooding, storms, drought, extreme cold in winter and above normal heat in summer.  The research will look at possible targets and indicators, which should be relevant to broader resilience frameworks and strategies in Scotland.  The main aim of the research is to enable a common understanding of climate resilience and the critical components in planning for local and national recovery from extreme weather.  

This research will involve an evidence review of recovery monitoring systems used elsewhere, identification and review of potential datasets that could be used to measure recovery from extreme weather events, and consideration of how monitoring recovery from extreme weather events can link and contribute to Scotland’s National Performance Framework, the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme and the Preparing Scotland guidance for getting ready for and dealing with emergencies.

The project began in January and will come to a close at the end of March 2020.

For more information please contact CEP’s Paula Orr (Technical Director) or Dr Sian Morse-Jones (Principal Consultant).

CEP’s Ric Eales visiting the 'Engage with Strathclyde' Event

CEP’s Ric Eales will be at the ‘Engage with Strathclyde’ event this week as part of his role as a Visiting Professor at the University

Ric Eales, CEP’s Managing Director, will be at the Engage with Strathclyde event this week – the University of Strathclyde’s flagship programme of events taking place over one week (29th April – 3rd May 2019).  The event is an opportunity for industry, the public and third sector to find out more about the University’s world leading research and how they can collaborate in a variety of ways.

Ric will be attending in his capacity as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Strathclyde.  He will in particular be visiting an event Showcasing Projects with Industry - Protecting and Enhancing the Environment.  He will also be meeting with students to discuss career opportunities in environmental consultancy.

For more information contacts Ric Eales r.eales@cep.co.uk / ric.eales@strath.ac.uk

New report by CEP and partners on the value of bathing waters in Scotland

New report on the value of Scottish bathing waters and the influence of bathing water quality

CEP,  with partners Economics for the Environment Consultancy (eftec) and experts from The South West Research Company (SWRC), University of St Andrews, University of Surrey and Mercatus Research, were commissioned by the Scottish Government to undertake a study on the value of bathing waters and the influence of bathing water quality in Scotland.

The project developed a detailed and quantifiable socio-economic understanding of the current and future value of bathing water quality to Scotland, and how water quality influences bathers, beach users and the national and local economies. CEP led on the literature review and qualitative aspects of the research, including carrying out focus groups with local communities and businesses in coastal locations across Scotland, and the synthesis of evidence concerning different perspectives on value.

The final report from the project has now been published: The value of bathing waters and the influence of bathing water quality: Final Research Report

A literature review was undertaken at the start of the project and is also available on the Scottish Government website.

For more information contact Clare Twigger-Ross (Technical Director)

CEP finalists for RTPI Research Excellence awards

CEP shortlisted for two RTPI research excellence awards

We are delighted to announce that CEP has been shortlisted as a finalist for two Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Research Excellence Awards 2018.  Our recent project Clyde Regional Marine Plan Dialogue for the Clyde Marine Planning Partnership is shortlisted for both The Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement and the Consultancy Award, the only institution or company with the same project shortlisted for two awards.

CEP designed a public dialogue on the Clyde Regional Marine Plan for the Clyde Marine Planning Partnership (CMPP) that engaged audiences beyond academia, supporting enhanced public understanding of marine planning challenges. The research design and questions were targeted to meet the evidence needs of the CMPP and the interests and knowledge of participating members of the public: the dialogue engaged people in two Clyde communities in exploring issues from their own perspective with technical experts and policy-makers.   The project adapted participatory planning techniques from research and practice and integrated these within a process comprising group work and plenary sessions.

The project authors were: Peter Phillips, Paula Orr, Izzy Cotton (CEP), Jasper Kenter, Jake Ainscough, Lucy Greenhill (Scottish Association for Marine Science Research Services Limited), Ellie Murtagh, Philip Mellor (University of Strathclyde)

The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research from RTPI accredited planning schools, and planning consultancies, in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and internationally. Winning and commended entries will be announced on 3 September 2018 during the opening ceremony of the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference, in Sheffield.

For further information contact Paula Orr (Technical Director) or Ric Eales (Managing Director)

CEP to evaluate Future Farming Scotland programme

CEP commissioned to evaluate Soil Association Scotland's Future Farming Scotland programme

CEP has been commissioned to evaluate Soil Association Scotland's Future Farming Scotland Programme. The programme aims to promote skills development and knowledge transfer in the agricultural sector in Scotland supporting the delivery of various competitiveness and environmental outcomes. CEP will be evaluating both process and outcome aspects of the programme by surveying beneficiaries and preparing case studies of certain interventions. The project builds on CEP's evaluation and assessment expertise in Scotland covering various aspects of land based natural capital. 

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips and Izzy Cotton will be working on this project.

CEP giving paper at bathing waters conference

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips presenting new bathing waters valuation research at the 2017 UK Bathing Waters Conference

CEP will be presenting the interim results of a research project for the Scottish Government at the UK Bathing Waters Conference 2017 on 21st November in Wrexham. CEP's Dr Peter Phillips will co-deliver the presentation with Erin Gianferrara from project partners eftec. The project is assessing the value of bathing waters in Scotland and the influence of bathing water quality on this. 

Please contact Dr Peter Phillips (Project Manager) for further information on the project. CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is the Project Director.

CEP commissioned to undertake Clyde marine public dialogue

Photo credit: 'Ardrossan Harbour Sunset' by Oliver Clarke on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP commissioned to undertake public dialogue to support the development of the Clyde Regional Marine Plan

CEP, working with SAMS Research Services Limited (SRSL), has been commissioned by the Clyde Marine Planning Partnership (CMPP) to design and deliver a public dialogue to support the development of the Clyde Regional Marine Plan (CRMP).

The dialogue will engage with around 30 members of the public from two locations in the CRMP area to: discuss how people engage with, use and benefit from the marine environment; consider key marine planning and management issues; and deliberate on potential policy options and measures for consideration in the emerging draft CRMP. 

The project builds on successful public dialogue work undertaken by CEP for Marine Scotland on the social impacts of offshore renewables and other, land-based participatory planning work undertaken by CEP for Scottish Natural Heritage in the Pentland Hills Regional Park.

For more information please contact Paula Orr (Project Director) or  Dr Peter Phillips (Project Manager).

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips awarded Honorary Lectureship

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips has been appointed as an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips has been appointed as an Honorary Lecturer within the University of Strathclyde's Faculty of Engineering. This appointment recognises Peter's service, since 2012, as a guest lecturer within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Peter teaches a class on Applied Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and supervises / examines MSc dissertation projects. He also leads the development of collaborations between CEP and the University, including: the Land Use Strategy (LUS) Delivery Evaluation Project for the Scottish Government; and developing climate change adaptation indicators for transport infrastructure, for ClimateXChange. 

CEP and partners to study the value of bathing waters in Scotland

CEP and partners commissioned by the Scottish Government to study the value of bathing waters in Scotland

CEP, with partners Economics for the Environment Consultancy (eftec) and experts from The South West Research Company (SWRC), University of St Andrews, University of Surrey and Mercatus Research, has been commissioned by the Scottish Government to study The Value of Bathing Waters and the Influence of Bathing Water Quality in Scotland.

CEP will be leading a multi-disciplinary team in developing a detailed and quantifiable socio-economic understanding of the current and future value of bathing water quality to Scotland and how water quality influences bathers, beach users and the national and local economies.

This study will provide the Scottish Government with key information on existing designated bathing waters and benchmark values to support decision-making relevant to the cost/benefit of driving further improvement to bathing water quality classifications under the revised Bathing Water Directive (BWD).

The socio-economic values explored will consider the wider aspects of Scotland’s reputational value for environmental excellence, and include less tangible values relating to health and wellbeing (e.g. benefit of being near blue spaces). These validated reference values will be used in policy development and decisions when assessing new sites and managing existing protected area designation (including de-designation).

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips is the project manager.

CEP delivering keynote at ESCom conference 2017

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips will deliver a keynote address on participatory land use planning at the ESCom 2017 conference 

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips will be delivering a keynote presentation at the ESCom 2017 conference on 'Participatory land use planning in the Pentland Hills: using ecosystem service values to inform decision-making'. The keynote on Monday 24th April 2017 will be based on CEP's current work in the Pentland Hills Regional Park which is supporting an established stakeholder group to apply the ecosystem approach to collaborative land use and management. The keynote presentation will be co-delivered with Neville Makan from Scottish Natural Heritage and Katja Schmidt from the University of Potsdam.

For further information contact Dr Peter Phillips (Senior Consultant) p.phillips@cep.co.uk

Training courses in natural capital and participatory planning now booking

CEP TRAINING COURSES FOR EKN IN NATURAL CAPITAL AND PARTICIPATORY PLANNING NOW BOOKING

Dr Bill Sheate and Dr Peter Phillips will deliver a series of training courses for the Ecosystems Knowledge Network (EKN) during 2017, following the success of our one-day training course on Incorporating ecosystem services into environmental assessment run in London and Manchester during 2016.

The Ecosystem Service and Environmental Assessment course will be run again in Scotland and in Birmingham in May and June 2017 respectively.  In addition, a new one-day training course in Participatory Land Use Planning will run back-to-back with that course:-

INCORPORATING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND NATURAL CAPITAL INTO ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

• Battleby Conference Centre, Perth, Central Scotland, 10th May 2017. With kind support from Scottish Natural Heritage.
• Austin Court, Central Birmingham B1 2NP, 8th June 2017.

PARTICIPATORY LAND USE PLANNING AND THE ECOSYSTEM APPROACH: WHAT, WHEN AND HOW

• Battleby Conference Centre, Perth PH1 3EW, 9th May 2017.  With kind support from Scottish Natural Heritage.

For further information and links for booking see below:

CEP to provide further support for participatory planning in the Pentlands

Photo credit: 'A sunny day in the Pentland hills' by John Mason on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP awarded contract extension to support participatory land use planning in the Pentland Hills Regional Park

In 2016, CEP's Dr Peter Phillips and Paula Orr undertook a successful project for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) supporting ecosystems approach based participatory land use planning in the Pentland Hills Regional Park. The report from this project will be published shortly. SNH have now awarded CEP a contract extension to develop this work further by translating the strategic Park-wide results and recommendations into more detailed management plans for two of the ecosystem service 'hotspot' areas identified in the 2016 work. As part of this extension work, CEP will design a further participative planning workshop. This will be delivered with key land managers and other stakeholders in February 2017.    

CEP at Scottish Government stakeholder meeting

CEP at Scottish Government Ecosystems and Land Use Stakeholders Engagement Group meeting

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips was invited to attend a meeting to discuss the Ecosystems and Land Use related components of the Scottish Government's new Strategic Research Programme (SRP) 2016-2021. The event, that took place on 14 November, was hosted by the Main Research Providers (James Hutton Institute and SRUC) and provided an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss and influence the forthcoming research programme. 

CLIMATE CHANGE INDICATORS CO-DEVELOPED BY CEP PUBLISHED

Climate change adaptation indicators co-developed by CEP have been published by the Scottish government

The Scottish Government has published a set of climate change adaptation indicators designed to monitor how well Scotland is doing against the objectives set by the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme (SCCAP). 

In partnership with the University of Strathclyde, CEP developed indicators for transport infrastructure as part of a wider project for ClimateXChange, which is Scotland's centre of expertise on climate change. The indicators have informed the Adaptation Sub-Committee's independent assessment of the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme published in September 2016.

A separate document with all the indicators including hyperlinks to each indicator card can be found here.

CEP delivered seminar at James Hutton Institute

Photo credit: 'land lines' by apalca on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips delivered a seminar on land use policy evaluation at JHI

On 28th July, CEP's Dr Peter Phillips gave an invited seminar to members of the James Hutton Institute Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences (SEGS) Research Group. His seminar was entitled Evaluating policies for sustainable land use - methods and case studies and built on CEP's land use and natural environment policy evaluation and research expertise and experience in Scotland and elsewhere. 

CEP presenting at Scottish ecosystem services conference

CEP'S DR PETER PHILLIPS PRESENTING ON LAND USE POLICY EVALUATION AT THE THIRD ANNUAL ESCOM CONFERENCE

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips will be presenting at the third annual ESCom conference in Edinburgh on 20th April 2016. ESCom is the ecosystem services community for Scotland linking science, policy and practice. Peter will be talking about land use policy evaluation and the role of the Scottish Land Use Strategy providing a framework for ecosystems approach based land use and management. Peter's talk will build on previous work undertaken by CEP in Scotland on land use policy and evaluation including the Scottish Land Use Strategy Delivery Evaluation for the Scottish Government and the Evaluation of the Land Use Strategy Forestry Focused Sub-Regional Pilot Studies for Forestry Commission Scotland.

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.

CEP presenting at SNH marine planning event

CEP's Peter Phillips presenting at Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) marine planning event

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips will be presenting at a Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) sharing good-practice event on 12 February 2016 on Dealing with uncertainty in the marine environment - assessing the impact of renewable developments.  The presentation will cover the approach and findings of a Sciencewise-ERC public dialogue project that CEP has been undertaking for Marine Scotland on the social impact of offshore renewables.