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A major requirement for national conservation strategies within the EU is to ensure that priority habitats for conservation within their domain are in "favourable" condition (i.e. compliance with Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora). In order to achieve this there is an increasing need to provide sound evidence-based advice. This is especially needed in cultural landscapes (grassland, heaths and moors) which were created and maintained by human activity. Marrs' group has led the field in providing evidence-based advice on management of both lowland heaths/upland moors for over 30 years using results from (a) regional-scale, structured-surveys, (b) extensive, long-term, manipulative-experiments and (c) ecosystem modelling. Outcomes have helped frame policy and guide good-practice by conservation practitioners, especially in the area of prescribed burning of moorlands.
Sea lice are the principal disease constraint for world Atlantic salmon culture and cost >€33m yearly in the UK and >€305m globally in terms of control measures and lost production. Research conducted by the University of Stirling's Institute of Aquaculture (IoA) has provided tools and strategies for sea louse control in farmed salmon worldwide. Impacts have been delivered through an integrated pest management approach which involves
(1) introduction of management tools including fallowing, single year-class stocking and area management
(2) screening, development, licensing and monitoring of veterinary medicines
(3) development of alternative strategies such as use of cleaner fish (wrasse) and sea louse resistant salmon
(4) incorporation of integrated pest management principles into public policy and legislation.
These tools and approaches are now being used by the U.K. and global Atlantic salmon industries.
This Unit's staff and associates have considerable expertise in land management, focussing on two issues faced in Africa; the management of communal rangelands and the management of native species for the benefit of local communities. Coventry University is a recognized centre of global knowledge on Prosopis, a series of economically and ecologically important tree species, but also widely-considered potentially serious weeds in many countries. Underpinning research carried out at Coventry was pivotal to the correct identification, evaluation and subsequent management and utilisation of the most common tropical species, Prosopis juliflora and Prosopis pallida. Other research, on the management of common rangelands, has provided an understanding of the way common land rights are expressed in communal areas and the social, political and ecological factors which govern them.
The Unit's research has led to economic impacts, including for The Mesquite Company (Texas) who generate USD 150,000 each year from the sale of Prosopis products. The research has also had impact on public policy and society in Kenya and South Africa. In Kenya, the Government changed its approach towards Prosopis from eradication towards management and lifted a blanket-ban on the use of plant-based charcoal as a result of the Unit's research. This enabled the Green Power Station (currently employing 2000 people) to be established. In South Africa, policy debate has been informed by research on the governance of common land. The research has also had impact on creativity, culture and society, informing public and political debate in South Africa, Kenya and India. Beneficiaries include businesses developing new products and producing energy; local communities in South Africa and Kenya, and the South African and Kenyan Governments.
Research conducted at the University of Bristol between 2003 and 2012 on the ecology, epidemiology and control of parasitic flies and worms has improved animal health and welfare in the UK and is addressing a major constraint on global food production — animal disease, particularly in the context of climate change. These are some of the impacts:
Research conducted by the University of Reading between 2002 and 2007 influenced management options mandated under the UK Government's agri-environmental schemes. Several innovative large-scale manipulative field experiments were used to measure the diversity of different groups of invertebrates in response to various management regimes in uncultivated field margins of farmland. The outcomes of this research fed directly into agri-environment scheme options and provided supportive evidence for management advice and advocacy work by several environmental non-government organisations. Changes in the management of field margins brought about through government scheme agreements and advocacy efforts by conservation groups has led to enhanced farmland biodiversity and improved habitat for threatened wildlife valued by the general public and conservationists.
HDM-4 is the most widely used system for road investment appraisal and decision making, generating improvements in public policies and services. Economic development and road agencies in developing countries are major users of the tool. HDM-4 has become the de facto standard used by the World Bank for its road investment appraisals and has been used to assess more than 200 projects since 2008, with some $29.5bn of World Bank loans, credits or grants drawn-down to fund these. Uptake of the tool has led to the commercial success of HDMGlobal, a consortium which manages the distribution and development of the software under exclusive licence from the World Road Association-PIARC, with revenues of £1.6m generated since 2008. HDM-4 has also been utilised for economic assessment and road systems investment management in the UK.
Since 2004, researchers in Cambridge have developed a series of generic and flexible models to predict the spread of plant diseases in agricultural, horticultural and natural environments. These now underpin policy decisions relating to the management and control of a number of such diseases, including sudden oak death and ash dieback in the UK (by Defra and the Forestry Commission), and sudden oak death in the US (by the United States Department of Agriculture). This has subsequently had an impact on how practitioners manage these diseases in the field, and on the environment through the implementation of disease mitigation strategies. In the case of ash dieback, the Cambridge work has also directly contributed to public involvement in mapping the spread of the disease.
Environmental management decisions are frequently based on records of environmental change recovered from natural archives such as lake sediments. Key to deciphering these records is a reliable technique for dating sediment sequences. Researchers in the Liverpool University Mathematical Sciences Department have played a major role in the development of dating techniques using natural (210Pb) and artificial (137Cs) fallout radionuclides. Working with environmental scientists they have been responsible for the implementation of these techniques in research programs that have resulted in national and international controls on e.g. emissions from power stations, the use of persistent organic pollutants and climate change. In particular, the US National Parks Service (NPS) is using their research to monitor pollution levels at sensitive locations in their National Parks and this research has also been a key factor in the UN decision in 2011 to ban the widely-used insecticide Endosulfan. Their research also enabled the NPS in 2012 to identify the most effective solution for marsh restoration off Long Island, New York, resulting in a considerable financial saving to the NPS; and finally their research on pollutants in the Norfolk Broads has led to the current campaign by the Broads Authority to promote environmentally friendly anti-fouling paints.