sêr cymru national research network for low …...here is an overview of the diverse research being...
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Sêr Cymru National Research Network
for Low Carbon, Energy and Environment
www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk
Welcome
Here is an overview of the diverse research being supported by the Sêr Cymru National Research Network for Low Carbon, Energy and Environment (NRN-LCEE). As our title suggests, the potential research area we have to cover is vast. But in a nutshell we are ultimately supporting research in Wales into how to sustainably manage natural resources while at the same time providing food and energy in a changing climate and for a growing population. Our aims are very clear:
- To support and promote excellent, internationally competitive science in Wales.
- To foster increased and novel collaboration between researchers in Wales. - To establish a new basis for a sustainable increase in research funding to Wales. - To encourage researchers with excellent track records to establish themselves
in Wales. In order to achieve these ambitious goals, we have established 8 Research Clusters to spearhead research into the following four main themes for the Network:
1. Sustainable intensification 2. Low carbon energy pathways 3. Developing the bio economy – social, economic and technological modelling 4. Impacts and mitigation of climate change and human activity I trust you will enjoy this brief introduction to our Clusters.
Prof. David Thomas Director of the Sêr Cymru National Research Network for Low Carbon, Energy and Environment
Contact: [email protected]
AQUAWALES: Minimising the Impacts of Intensive Aquaculture in the face of Climate Change
Swansea University; Aberystwyth University; Cardiff University; Cardiff Harbour Authority; FishGen; Natural Aptitude; Natural Resources Wales; Pontus Aqua; Research
Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources; SkillFish; Wye & Usk Foundation
Global demand for fish and shellfish has increased 9% annually over the last few decades, with fish farming becoming increasingly important. Fisheries in Wales contribute approximately £30 million per year to rural and coastal economies, and the Welsh Government aims to double aquaculture production by 2020. However, to achieve long-term sustainability and meet food security demands, aquaculture needs to diversify and to step-up the domestication of aquatic species, which will have to thrive on less food, less space and less water, all compounded by warmer temperatures. Thus, the main challenges faced by intensive aquaculture are: 1) reducing its ecological footprint, 2) reducing the risk of disease transmission, and 3) controlling the inadvertent introduction of invasive species. AQUAWALES combines academic and non-academic participants, including stakeholders and local government, and will target these challenges by combining three critical aspects related to sustainable aquaculture: 1) domestication, 2) disease resistance and 3) introductions of aquatic invasive species. Using a multidisciplinary approach to bridge, for the first time, the genetic and environmental (epigenetic) components of fish undergoing domestication, we will consider the roles of genetic and non-genetic effects on fish domestication and response to crowding, and investigate the potential effects of climate change on the risk of non-native aquatic species associated with aquaculture and fisheries using state-of-the-art methods.
Cluster Leader: Dr. Sonia Consuegra
Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/aquawales
CLEANER COWS: Consequential Life Cycle Assessment of Environmental & Economic Effects of Dairy and Beef
Consolidation and Intensification Pathways Bangor University; Aberystwyth University; Cardiff University;
DairyCo; Farm Business Survey; HPC Wales
Milk and beef production contribute significantly to ecosystem damage via greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient losses, ammonia emissions, and depletion of finite resources. UK Dairy farms are an excellent system to study sustainable intensification, owing to an ongoing trend of consolidation and intensification (C&I) that has implications for the environmental efficiency of coupled beef-production systems, and for indirect land use change (iLUC) via feed production.
CLEANER COWS will apply Consequential Life Cycle Assessment (CLCA), economic and environmental modelling to capture wider effects of beef production and iLUC at multiple scales. The Cluster will develop a truly interdisciplinary and scientifically excellent framework drawing on expertise in LCA and farm management modelling, animal husbandry, economic modelling, and detailed data on existing farm structure and trends. Allowing feedback between LCA, farm management and economic components, we will compare resource, environmental and financial efficiency of different types of dairy farm. The Cluster will assess the effects of shifting from one farm system to another and assess resource, environmental and socio-economic effects of expanding dairy systems on different scales. CLEANER COWS will simultaneously investigate which management practices can most efficiently mitigate C&I hotspots, considering multiple direct and indirect environmental effects. This will provide policy-relevant data on how to maximise the global sustainability of dairy production.
Cluster Leader: Dr. James Gibbons Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/cleaner-cows
CLIMATE-SMART GRASS: A Strategy for Grassland to Safeguard Forage Production Against Extreme Weather Events through
Resilience to Multiple Stresses Bangor University; Aberystwyth University; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Improved grasslands sustaining livestock farming represent the greatest land use in Wales and are a major component of the Welsh economy. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events are predicted to negatively affect these ecosystems, resulting in severe knock-on effects to ecosystem services, the agricultural economy and the cultural landscape. These consequences may be compounded if extreme events occur close together. To future-proof the ecological, socioeconomic and cultural aspects of agricultural landscapes, land users will need to adopt and implement holistic climate-smart plant breeding programmes with soil- and animal-based management strategies to provide landscape resilience to more than one stress.
CLIMATE-SMART GRASS addresses plant-soil interactions in grasslands and the effects of extreme weather events (flooding, drought and high ground-level ozone levels) on farm productivity and the delivery of ecosystem services. At the same time the Cluster will design and test new grassland swards to provide greater resistance against such events. Our multidisciplinary team will develop and validate new regimes for the protection of lowland productive grasslands to improve the resilience of Welsh farming to multiple environmental stressors and determine the ‘tipping points’ at which stressors cause irreversible negative changes in grassland ecosystem functioning. This policy-relevant research aims to provide the agricultural industry, policymakers and associated stakeholders with new management tools for future-proofing Welsh agriculture against extremes and uncertainties in weather.
Cluster Leader: Prof. Davey Jones Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/climate-smart-grass
GEO-CARB-CYMRU: Assessing, Characterising and Enhancing Geologic Carbon Storage and Geothermal Energy in Wales
Aberystwyth University; British Geological Survey Wales; Cardiff University; National Museum Wales; University of Leeds
At present heavy industry remains an important component of the Welsh economy. Hence the country is a large carbon emitter, producing 13% of the UK’s carbon and contributing to man-made climate change. Through reduction of carbon emissions, GEO-CARB-CYMRU will help develop low carbon energy, tackle climate change and provide energy security and economic prosperity, by investigating the subsurface as a site for low carbon energy pathways. Specifically, it will characterise and enhance geologic carbon storage (GCS) systems and groundwater heating systems in Wales.
GCS involves the injection of carbon dioxide into underground rocks and is a critically important strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Wales’ Carbon emitters do not have ready-access to conventional GCS prospects in depleted gas field reservoirs. Therefore it is imperative to investigate unconventional storage options (coals and shales) in Wales. Also, the subsurface offers other great options for low carbon energy. Specifically, microbially generated groundwater heat in the Welsh coal field could provide the potential for extensive ground source heat pumps which could be optimised to provide Wales’ low carbon energy needs.
GEO-CARB-CYMRU is a partnership between academic and non-academic partners from Wales and the rest of the UK. The Cluster will develop a whole system experimental, modelling and field approach to characterise and enhance GCS systems and groundwater heating systems in Wales, spanning interfaces between geosphere-hydrosphere and atmosphere, and utilising modelling from the pore to reservoir scale. This will be an international frontier for future low carbon economic development.
Cluster Leader: Dr. Andrew Mitchell Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/geo-carb-cymru
MULTI-LAND: Enhancing Agricultural Productivity and
Ecosystem Service Resilience in Multifunctional Landscapes Bangor University; Aberystwyth University; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology;
Coed Cymru; Natural Resources Wales; Snowdonia National Park Authority
Global population size is expected to increase by two to three billion over the next three
decades, and combined with greater wealth will result in a continued rise in demand
for high quality food products, urbanisation and environmental degradation that
represent an unprecedented challenge to food and agricultural systems. Especially in
the face of climate change these are major challenges for sustainable land use and
resilient agriculture, in particular when balancing food security with other ecosystem
services, multiple or conflicting land uses and the role of agriculture in reducing
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
MULTI-LAND aims to identify positive interactions between trees, livestock and soil and
improve our understanding of animal behaviour and metabolism (feeding, growth,
defecation and use of shelter) to increase productivity and reduce GHG emissions.
Expanding tree cover in the landscape has a potentially positive impact on climate and
flood regulation by altering the physical characteristics of soil, promoting soil carbon
sequestration and nutrient conservation, and reducing GHG efflux. The Cluster will
examine the role of shelterbelt systems in the provision of ecosystem services and in
increasing the resilience to perturbations of upland livestock ecosystems. By creating a
multifunctional landscape and exploiting the potential synergies between trees and
livestock we aim to demonstrate how sustainable intensification of farming practices
can improve agricultural productivity and local livelihoods whilst enhancing the delivery
of a range of regulating ecosystem services.
Cluster Leader: Dr. Andy Smith
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/multi-land
PLANTS and ARCHITECTURE
Aberystwyth University; Bangor University; Cardiff University
The Plants & Architecture Cluster aims to understand the interaction between buildings and plants, and their environment, so that we can develop the cities and crops of tomorrow. This project revisits the relationship between plants and architecture through biomimicry: a contemporary philosophy in architecture that seeks solutions for sustainability in nature. Through this approach we seek to improve overall sustainability of buildings and plants as well as making future buildings and cities smarter and greener. Architecture has the challenge to provide society with a future built environment that is resource-efficient, effective in providing good working and living conditions, and pleasing to the senses. Plants offer a number of possibilities to help inform future sustainable building design, whilst architecture offers tools and thinking to help design crops that produce more sustainably.
In the future, we will need to consider how crop production can occur within cities. This is beginning to happen and brings advantages through reducing transportation costs, as well as through aesthetic and health benefits. We will study the use of plants on buildings, including green roofs and walls. Within buildings we will study the benefits of plants in the living space and the use of plants as a source of low carbon materials to store carbon and to improve sustainability and indoor air quality. Nature-inspired architecture and modern plant breeding both seek to move toward radical increases in efficiency, including use of available energy, water and light, as well as tolerance to climate extremes. Through the exchange of thinking between our disciplines we therefore believe we can generate the dramatic changes needed to deliver the essential increases in the sustainability of cities and crops for future generations.
Cluster Leader: Prof. Iain Donnison
Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/plants-architecture
QUOTIENT: Quantification, Optimisation, and Environmental Impacts of Marine Renewable Energy
Bangor University; Cardiff University; Swansea University
The northwest European shelf seas provide world leading wave and tidal energy resources for the development of a marine renewable energy industry, and therefore host numerous test centres and commercial projects. However, we do not yet fully understand the nature of these resources and their interaction, or how the resource (and device loadings) will evolve as a result of sea-level rise and changes in weather patterns. Furthermore, we do not yet know how best to optimise marine energy installations so that these intermittent resources can be aggregated to provide a firm source of power, whilst minimising environmental impacts.
QUOTIENT addresses these issues in four research themes: 1) Resource assessment, 2) Optimisation, 3) Environmental impacts, and 4) Impacts of the environment on renewable energy devices. We will examine how marine energy resources interact with one-another over a variety of scales, and determine how we can best manage marine renewable energy extraction, for multiple resource types, for future scenarios, and informing energy policy and investments. The Cluster will also investigate how feedbacks between energy extraction and the resource influence dynamical processes driven by the resource, such as sediment transport and the maintenance of beaches and offshore sand banks. In particular, this research will determine how such impacts compare to natural variability, and could actually be used to our benefit. We will apply a range of high resolution 3D solutions on supercomputers over timescales ranging from sub-second (turbulent) to decadal (including climate change), and across a vast range of scales from individual turbines to the edge of the continental shelf, validated and parameterised by field observations and laboratory experiments.
Cluster Leader: Dr. Simon Neill Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/quotient
RESILCOAST: Integrating Ecosystem Resilience into Coastal Planning for the Persistence of Natural Flood Protection and
Wetland Ecosystem Services Bangor University; Cardiff University; Centre for Ecology & Hydrology; Swansea
University; Natural Resources Wales; Plymouth Marine Laboratory; NIOZ
Rising sea levels and increasingly frequent extreme weather events are predicted with climate change, placing pressure on protective coastal infrastructure. Coastal salt marshes are crucial in this protection through absorbing waves and locking soils into plant root nets. This ‘ecosystem service’ represents a substantial economic saving on coastal defences. Yet, some marshes undergo sudden, unpredictable ‘state shifts’ – they change position or transform into un-vegetated mudflats, which hampers their use for flood protection and the management of other ecosystem benefits.
RESILCOAST is a multi-disciplinary project with partners from Wales, England and the Netherlands. We aim to understand what governs marsh resilience and how state shifts will be affected by climate change and human exploitation. RESILCOAST will use state-of-the-art hydrological flumes and field experiments to examine marsh resilience. Using historical fly-over photography, we will develop novel approaches to forecasting state shifts – something that is lacking for most global ecosystems. RESILCOAST will examine, for the first time, the hypothesis that saltmarsh biodiversity will enhance resilience against erosion and disturbance. This will be coupled to research on shoreline management policy and planning, placing a particular emphasis on estuaries in Wales. RESILCOAST aims to answer the following fundamental questions: what benefits do we currently have from these salt marshes and how valuable are these? How capable is the current shoreline management policy of considering state shifts? How well does shoreline management planning accommodate natural resilience?
Cluster Leader: Dr. Martin Skov Contact: [email protected] Website: http://www.nrn-lcee.ac.uk/resilcoast
The NRN-LCEE is one of 3 Networks supported by Sêr Cymru. All have an ultimate goal of developing long-term research capacity within Wales. The other 2 Networks are:
The National Research Network in Advanced Engineering and Materials, is a collaboration with core partners from Swansea, Bangor and Cardiff Universities and TWI Limited. The Network supports projects that contribute to three main research themes: Materials and Manufacturing, Modelling Techniques, and Sensors and Devices. The Network supports a range of PhD
students, Post-Doctoral Research Assistants (PDRAs) and early career Research Fellows. The Network also supports Industry Fellows to facilitate knowledge transfer and commercialisation. More information: http://www.ernw.ac.uk Email: [email protected]
The National Research Network for Life Sciences and Health supports world-class science within Wales and the development of new therapeutic treatments in areas of unmet medical and veterinary need. The Network brings together academics at Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities and aims to further develop long-term research capacity
within the Life Sciences. The Network supports a range of PhD studentships, Research Projects and Platform Grants. The Network also actively promotes collaboration with external partners such as the NHS, industry and international research organisations. More information: http://www.lsrnw.ac.uk Email: [email protected]