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A research partnership between Edge Hill University and Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council developed innovative methods of identifying gaps in knowledge and understanding about sedimentary coastal dynamics and investigating practitioner needs. The partnership enabled the dissemination of scientific information to audiences across the wider community. The partnership provided a framework which enabled and enhanced integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). Within this framework coastal zone managers were supported in the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies, taking account of both long and short term environmental change. Policy and management decisions are now based upon sound scientific evidence wherever possible, ascertained by research where time allows, with significant scientific, social and policy benefits. Practice elsewhere on the UK's Irish sea coast, and elsewhere in the EU, has been influenced.
Polar research at SPRI has been made accessible to wider audiences through the Polar Museum, which is unique as Britain's only museum dedicated to the Arctic and Antarctic. The Museum's formal plan has at its core the use of displays to communicate SPRI's research findings to a general, non-specialist audience; for example, showing the public how this research is deepening the understanding of environmental problems such as sea-level rise. A complete redesign in 2009- 10 utilised SPRI research in polar science and humanities to underpin museum displays (which had previously related only to polar exploration) and to project the significance of the rapidly changing polar environment — climatic, social and cultural — to a diverse audience (c. 50,000 in 2012) with international reach. Research is communicated through captioned museum exhibits, interactive screens and audio-guides, talks and tours, and Internet resources. Wide secondary reach includes substantial media coverage in newspapers, TV and radio. The Polar Museum was shortlisted for the Art Fund's prestigious Museum of the Year Award in 2011 and for European Museum of the Year in 2012.
University of Glasgow expertise in coastal erosion has directly influenced biodiversity policy at local, national and international levels, delivered flood mitigation initiatives in partnership with public agencies in Scotland, and mobilised public support for environmental safeguards to preserve our natural heritage. Dr Jim Hansom has been instrumental in shaping UK environmental strategy to include geodiversity. In Scotland, he has worked with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency on flood assessments and the identification of Sites of Special Scientific Interest, helped to establish a charity mobilising community volunteers to monitor Scotland's coastline, and assisted Oxfam to allocate erosion prevention grants to local communities. Hansom's expertise has fed into the polemic protest film You've Been Trumped and a BBC Panorama special, bringing coastal geodiversity and biodiversity issues sharply into focus on a very public stage.
Research carried out by the University of Reading's Martin Bell and Nicholas Branch on previously neglected wetland environments (such as coasts, floodplains and mires) has had impact in two main areas:
1) Heritage management: The work has made a major contribution to the sustainable management of marginal environments in the face of climate change and development pressures. This has directly affected local planning processes, with Bell and Branch's approaches to monitoring and recording adopted as best practice by a range of organisations.
2) Capacity building of geoarchaeology in the commercial sector: The research has enhanced the capability of organisations to respond effectively to the challenges of interpreting European wetland archaeology in advance of development pressures. Knowledge transfer of the research to these commercial units has contributed to sustained economic growth for such organisations.
Supported by world-leading research, Geography and Earth Sciences' Centre for Glaciology (CfG) operates as a highly-effective hub for providing information to the public concerning the relationships between climate change and Earth's ice masses. The impact of this engagement has been to inform the knowledge base of an international audience of people concerning the reality of climate change and its consequences for the cryosphere. This has been achieved through (i) extensive involvement in television, radio and newspaper coverage, (ii) the design and provision of a broad range of innovative internet-based and social media resources, and (iii) authorship and presentation of lectures, books and articles specifically designed to improve public understanding.
3DU researchers have used innovative techniques for reconstructing past sea levels to compile a comprehensive database of evidence on recent and current UK sea-level change, and have developed an improved model of vertical land movement which is consistent with the historical data on sea-level change. The model and database underpin the sea-level component of the UK Climate Projections 09 (UKCP09) climate modelling tool, and thereby inform a wide range of coastal planning and management activities around the UK. DU researchers have also applied these methodological advances in detailed work on coastal stability at existing and proposed sites for nuclear power stations and nuclear waste repositories in England and Sweden.
Research based on unique marine-geophysical, bathymetric and geological data from the previously little-known polar shelf seas, collected and analysed by Dowdeswell and colleagues, has had significant impacts on the work of British and international charting agencies and on the activities of multi-national hydrocarbons companies. In terms of hazards in polar seas, these high-resolution water-depth data from offshore of Greenland and Antarctica have proved invaluable for use by the UK Hydrographic Office and international sea-floor mapping agencies in formal navigational charts that have wide international reach. Industry has also used Dowdeswell's satellite-derived measurements of iceberg dimensions and drift tracks, together with evidence on iceberg-keel ploughing of the sea floor, to assess hazards of operating ships and sea-floor structures in Arctic waters. Dowdeswell and colleagues' interpretation of seismic data has generated understanding of Quaternary sedimentary geometry and architecture on glacier-influenced shelves. This has been used in collaborative projects with hydrocarbons companies in applications to identify sorted sandy sediments (significant as oil and gas traps) in hydrocarbon-bearing ancient glacial rocks, for example in North Africa.
Quaternary Science research undertaken at Royal Holloway examined the environmental archives provided by ancient rivers, now preserved in part as extensive sand and gravel deposits. In so doing, the research identified the former courses of major Pleistocene river systems in England, in particular the now-extinct Bytham river, the largest in England until its obliteration by the ice sheets of the Anglian glaciation c. 450,000 years ago. The research concerned the geographical extent and quality of these Pleistocene river deposits, as well as their palaeo-environmental context, age and archaeology. The interlinked impacts of the research have been: a) economic, via the identification of resources of economic value to the aggregates industry; and b) cultural, via enhancing heritage preservation in England's sand and gravel quarries.
Firstly, then, the research has a direct economic benefit for the UK aggregates industry, which has used the results on Bytham river deposits to predict the location and viability of aggregates resources. This has resulted in new quarries, and in the extension of existing quarries, with a value of aggregate production circa £50m in the assessment period. These impacts were facilitated in part by the Department's close working relationships with a number of quarrying companies. A wider economic impact on the aggregates industry was also delivered through significant changes to the British Geological Survey maps that form an important basis for quarry development.
A second impact of the research has been the enhancing of heritage preservation. The Department's relationship with the quarrying industry has had a direct effect on the archaeological and geodiversity policy that regulates its economic activity. Royal Holloway took a leading role in the English Heritage supported National Ice Age Network (NIAN) which engaged the aggregate industry, quarry workers and members of the public in the task of recognising, recording and preserving Pleistocene remains in England's sand and gravel quarries. During the assessment period, NIAN, expert advice from Royal Holloway staff and other dissemination of research has shaped ongoing heritage policy in relation to quarrying and Pleistocene and Palaeolithic remains.
Deep sea tailings placement (DSTP) techniques have been pioneered in Papua New Guinea (PNG): a mining reliant economy in a seismically active region, facing major environmental challenges in the safe handling and storage of mine tailings on land. Dr Shimmield's team researched impacts of DSTP on the marine environment specifically to inform and develop guidelines for the use of DSTP to reduce environmental impact, thereby lowering risk and increasing private sector investment. Guidelines have been established as regulation by the PNG Government providing reassurance to private investors, facilitating an increase in mining exports to 60% of total export (2010).
The Coastal Processes Research Group (CPRG) at Plymouth University has developed new methodologies, utilising video systems to efficiently monitor and manage the coastal environment. This research has impacted upon coastal managers, mariners, coastal communities, tourists and industries, for example, by reducing the risk of coastal flooding, drowning in rip currents and ships running aground. Algorithms, methodologies and systems developed by the CPRG, trigger appropriate and timely management intervention to protect coastal communities from flooding, instruct dredging operations and effectively manage recreational beach resources.