Environmental policy
Research Topic
Language: English
This is a research topic created to provide authors with a place to attach new problem publications.
Research topics above this in the hierarchy
Research problems linked to this topic
- What impact would the introduction of carbon border taxes have on regional trade flows?
- How can international governance, emerging technologies (including climate tech) and digital agreements be used to achieve Net Zero and support environmental sustainability?
- What are the biggest chemical, pesticide, and hazardous waste-related risks to the environment and human health, both in the UK and globally? What are the costs of inaction? How are these risks most effectively monitored and managed, and what is the role of government?
- Better understanding of ecosystem responses to air quality impacts and of restoration trajectories / rates of recovery of impacted systems in response to policy interventions
- How effective are marine protected areas and how can we monitor and evaluate the ecological, social, economic, and cultural costs and benefits of these areas?
- Understand the full benefits of offshore renewables. To identify and mitigate their environmental impacts by establishing socio-economic evidence to provide information to influence marine policy and development decisions
- How do we protect pollinators and maximise beneficial insects?
- What capability and capacity in the food and farming industry is needed to deliver future rural community policy needs?
- How can we monitor prevalence of COVID-19 and similar viruses through our water systems to act as an early warning system and inform public health decisions?
- How do we improve our modelling of water resource availability for people and the environment?
- How can we evaluate best practice intervention for addressing climate change and gender equality?
- Which trade policy levers could have the greatest impact in terms of reducing global emissions? Which are the most realistic mechanisms to achieve clean growth?
- How can we promote efficiency and investment in the water sector and incentivise environmentally responsible behaviour from all branches of society?
- How can the pathways to decarbonisation of transport be evaluated against the UK’s international climate ambitions?
- How much has trade increased/decreased global emissions, through improving production processes and accentuating market failures?
- How do we increase societal resilience to flood and coastal erosion risk?
- How can we optimise the management of flood and coastal erosion infrastructure?
- We also need to look internationally: How does our domestic approach compare internationally? How does implementation differ between developing and developed countries?
- What approaches will best empower rural communities to develop social, economic, and environmental interventions appropriate to their own local circumstances?
- How can policy action best support decarbonisation of aviation? What is the most appropriate role for market-based measures compared to other policy measures? How should market based measures and other policy measures be designed to mitigate the risk of unintended consequences?
- How can we encourage the development and dissemination of innovations in the agri-environment sector? What are the right conditions for success?
- How can we design and embed robust, cross-cutting indicators of, and improve our understanding of, human, animal, plant, and environmental health in systems under pressure from climate change?
- What are the likely changes to our agricultural sector following COVID-19 and how can the agricultural system transition be best guided towards a sustainable trajectory while ensuring food security?
- What is the best way to model trade-offs and synergies across multiple environmental, social, and economic goals resulting from land use and land management?
- How can we develop pathways towards net zero that are socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable? What is the range of viable solutions, and what are the associated co-benefits and trade-offs? This includes developing spatially explicit models and tools to inform decisions at the landscape level, including prioritisation of conflicting land use demands
- How can we assess the impact of the National Adaptation Programme and Adaptation Reporting Power on improving resilience?
- What approach should central Government take to best manage and organise road freight / logistics in the UK to make it more efficient, resilient and reduce its environmental impact and what would be its likely impact on costs and competition in the supply chain?
- How can we improve measurement of global emissions from international trade? To what extent have improved production
- What is the impact of coronavirus on the multilateral and international alignments on climate change consensus? What opportunities are afforded the UK in its efforts to tackle the global threat
- How will the economic impact of coronavirus affect governments’ ambitions for climate change targets and biodiversity? What opportunities are afforded the UK in its efforts to tackle the global threat
- What evidence and methods are required to minimise the distortionary effects of carbon border taxes, and overcome the technical obstacles of tracking embedded carbon?
- How can we develop and exploit new methodologies to ensure cost-effective monitoring of climate change and adaptation actions and impact on climate risk? How do we measure resilience to test the success and cost effectiveness of actions, and incorporate resilience indicators into decision making?
- Following COVID, the shift to online retail and increasing densification of cities, what does the evidence show that sustainable urban living looks like, to cater to society’s economic, environmental and social needs?
- With growing preference for greener investments, how should sustainability goals be balanced with ensuring all sectors can continue to access financial markets?
- How can we effectively measure the long-term sectoral impacts of shifting consumer preferences for greener goods?
- What measures could help minimise the risks of de-forestation, biodiversity, and habitat loss in producer countries, without creating excessive trade distortion?
- How do we incorporate the full spectrum of natural capital and the value of the benefits it provides into policy development, analysis, and appraisal? What are the tools we need to make use of robust economic values easier for everyone – across government and beyond?
- How can we most effectively implement nature-based solutions, such as tree planting and peatland restoration, to address climate change, support progress to net zero carbon emission, reduce biodiversity loss and prevent poverty?
- How can we improve horizon scanning capability for emerging global chemical risks to the environment?
- How do we encourage the design of longer lasting and easily repairable consumer items?
- Improve our understanding of how behavioural change can help meet air quality and noise/soundscape policy ambitions and improve the evaluation and dissemination of effective policy interventions
- How should mitigation of other greenhouse gases and pollutants be compared to and combined with CO2 mitigation (i.e., what is the balance of action and what are the appropriate metrics to compare them), and what do these mean for the timing of the requirement for net zero emissions?
- What are the population-level impacts of sublethal pesticide and other chemical exposure in the environment?
- Increasing understanding of the macro-economic benefits of resource efficiency. Developing metrics and measurement techniques to identify key areas for intervention to achieve these benefits and to monitor progress
- Can other land-based approaches to greenhouse gas removal, such as enhanced weathering and biochar, help achieve net zero without negative environmental impacts?
- What is needed to bring the UK to a best-in-world performance on recycling, particularly in difficult areas such as urban recycling? How can we improve secondary material markets to drive further recycling increases?
- Improving the use and design of extended producer responsibility schemes in the UK that could yield significant benefits
- What are the interventions needed to reverse climate change or at least hold it steady to begin to mitigate the multiple stresses it causes?
- What are the competing pressures, trade-offs, and synergies of different land-uses in relation to climate change in a post COVID-19 world?
- Integrate fisheries monitoring in a systems approach to manage and maintain sustainable productivity. Integrate marine planning systems to protect habitats and species, and reduce the industry’s costs to enable economic development
- How can the UK optimise sustainable growth of biomass for use in power generation (bioenergy) and, with appropriate storage, for removal of atmospheric CO2? How can the negative environmental consequences from biomass production and use (on soil quality, water quality, air quality, and biodiversity) be minimised? What’s the full life cycle analysis for different feedstock? What’s the scalability of different feedstocks within sustainable limits?
- How can we manage the land to provide benefits to society and minimise harm to the aquatic ecosystem?
- What types of governance may improve resilience of the water system?
- Endemic animal diseases undermine agricultural productivity, negatively impacting animal welfare, farmers’ livelihoods, public health, and threaten trade. Increased research into improved methods of detection and control of bovine TB and other such endemic diseases remains a priority for Defra
- How can we predict the potential impacts of a changing climate on actions and strategies to mitigate climate change (for example how will future climate change impact the delivery of carbon sequestration by different habitats)? What tools are available to allow for effective planning of climate change mitigation strategies that are resilient to a changing climate?
- How should policies be designed and schemes implemented to help the food and farming sector preserve and enhance the natural environment, while meeting other priorities such as the commitment to net zero emissions of greenhouse gases?
- How do we reduce the impacts of production on the environment through more sustainable food production, processing, and manufacture? And how do we influence consumer choice towards healthy and sustainable dietary choices?
- How can the UK protect and increase its standing stock of organic carbon: trees, peat, soil, and salt marshes? How can these habitats most efficiently be distributed spatially given limited land and other needs (for example urban space, food production, recreation)? How can increases in carbon stocks be achieved while maximising co-benefits such as biodiversity, clean water, and nutrient balance?
- Which interventions can be used to incentivise improvements in water quality in the environment?
- What will be the ecological, economic, and social impacts of sea level rise? How effective are our current responses?
- How can we better understand future flood and coastal erosion risk? Including assessing the impact of climate change, and wider social, political, or economic factors
- What is the value of different elements of the natural environment in economic terms and more generally? How can we best capture and integrate intangible values into decision-making?
- How can we build resilience of biodiversity and society to climate change through ecosystem restoration, better land management, and land use?
- What are the actions that will have the biggest impact on restoring freshwater habitats as far as possible to more naturally functioning ecosystems?
- What are possible governance and finance options for flood and coastal erosion risk management?
- What is the impact of rising sea level on coastal systems, natural, and human? Can natural systems help to mitigate against coastal incursion and degradation?
- How does investment in the environment bring benefits to society, including through health, wellbeing, and natural capital? Who are the beneficiaries and how do we quantify and communicate those benefits – and costs?
- What are the emerging drivers of change and what might future change look like? New thinking, analysis, and data can improve our understanding, and our ability to anticipate how economic, social, and environmental drivers might change in the future. How these affect the trajectory of environmental outcomes and the future state of rural communities and businesses?
- Horizon scanning and futures: Challenges to the UK can be varied and diverse, ranging from manmade deliberate actions by foreign states to naturally occurring events such as flooding, soil erosion and so on. Assessment of current and future challenges will need to be combined with risk management approaches
- How can we assess and mitigate systemic risks involving environmental factors? What are the best approaches for monitoring that tracks system dynamics based on key ‘watchpoints’ to trigger mitigation actions?
- Systems analysis that considers human-environmental systems as a complex set of interactions, and the novel use of systems thinking to consider the feedbacks and consequences of action in this system
- What do we know about the public acceptability of necessary restrictions such as counter disease measures? What lessons are applicable from public acceptability of the coronavirus restrictions to the animal and plant health domain?
- How can rural communities and businesses contribute to and benefit from the attainment of national economic, social, and environmental objectives?
- What actions would most effectively and efficiently improve the status of the natural environment and secure economic, social, and health benefits domestically and globally?
- How can different mixes of ‘responses’ – such as regulations, taxes (for example polluter pays), subsidies (for example public money for public goods), and spatial planning – impact the delivery of environmental, economic, and social outcomes at different spatial scales?
- How can we encourage or incentivise behavioural change to achieve positive outcomes for the environment, and how can we enable appropriate informed adaptive management with communities?
- Analysis of social and economic interactions with the environment and natural resources. What are the links and trade-offs between biodiversity, climate, sustainable management of forestry, soils and peatland restoration, economic development, food, health, wellbeing, and global poverty?
- Global drivers of declines in nature are well documented but we need to understand how drivers interact in the UK and globally, as well as the global impacts of UK activities. We also need to understand how our actions to address declines (such as policy responses, intervention and environmental management) impact drivers
- How to measure ecological connectivity and design coherent ecological networks through nature restoration?
- How can we best develop an inclusive societal vision for a just transition towards sustainability? At what spatial scale should such visions be developed and how to reconcile across scales? How can we best manage the polycentric governance to implement these visions?
- How can we encourage or incentivise behavioural change among businesses, communities, and individuals to achieve positive outcomes for the environment? What models of societal change might be used to underpin these behaviour change initiatives?
- Advanced electronics: How will sensors, omics, geographical information systems, internet of things, be used to support regulation and enforcement needs across the agri-envrionmental and food sectors?
- Development of models to support decision making on complex and wicked problems (for example on land use, environmental trade-offs, food systems)
- How will different groups of society, particularly in rural communities, be affected by changes associated with the move towards Net Zero and the goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan? How can positive effects be adopted more widely and negative impacts be mitigated?
- What makes communities resilient to natural hazards and other crises? What can we learn from the coronavirus pandemic about the loss of resilience and protecting vulnerable communities to inform future response to crises? What are the important social dimensions for achieving environmental and infrastructure resilience?
- How has the COVID-19 pandemic influenced how people engage with and value environmental systems (including nature, wildlife, and farming and food supply)? What opportunities does this present to lock-in positive behaviour change and secure environmental objectives in the longer term?
- How do we deploy emerging technologies to move from post-disease/outbreak surveillance to pre-emergence surveillance and mitigation of risks?
- How can local planning for nature-based solutions be best reconciled with regional and national strategies? What are the most effective ways to combine place-based participatory approaches with evidence and analysis of the likely effectiveness of nature-based solutions?
- How do we maximise the various benefits of nature-based solutions, and address any trade-offs and associated risks, through our plans for nature recovery, afforestation, peatland restoration, natural flood management, and improved water quality?
- What criteria should we use to determine acceptable sectoral climate resilience scenarios across government departments, and when building preparedness externally?
- What are the broader environmental consequences of changes to the housing and planning system, and what is needed to support a lower-carbon future?
- How to optimize the deployment of different nature-based solutions to realise their various benefits and avoid negative outcomes (for example some tree planting on peatland)?
- What is the most effective means to support community regeneration through use of parks and public spaces?
- As well as modelling and understanding major land use change (for example from agriculture to forestry), how can we understand the effects of more subtle changes in land management across wide areas (for example changing tillage practice)?
- What are the impacts of greenhouse gas removals and negative emission technologies on climate and the environment? What are the trade-offs of negative emissions techniques and other interventions?
- How can a more strategic approach to land use be developed through aligning climate change objectives (adaptation and mitigation) with objectives for biodiversity and ecosystem services? How can the environmental co-benefits of mitigation actions be identified and quantified?
- What is the role of the consumer in delivering net zero and how can changes be achieved equitably? What are the potential market responses to such changes and how do we avoid unintended consequences?
- How will agriculture affect the resilience to climate change of surrounding habitats and communities- for example water availability, flooding, land use change, chemical harm on ecosystem functions related to climate resilience?
- How will crop, livestock, and woodland resilience alter in the future, impacting optimal agricultural and forestry practices for the UK? What practices and policies can we develop to drive adaptation?
- How can society and government act to protect and enhance nature, thereby sustaining the ecosystem services (including mitigation and adaptation to climate change) it provides, under a changing climate?
- How can we balance different interests at local and national levels, to provide the resources we need, reduce degradation of natural capital and improve the state of the environment?
- What are the real-world barriers that prevent land-users (for example farmers) taking up low/negative carbon measures, and how can these be overcome? How can we improve the estimation and validation of take up for these practices?
- How can the UK develop measurement of carbon fluxes from different habitats and farming systems which are in different conditions and using different management approaches? This is especially relevant for peatland and coastal habitats
- What is the GHG emissions reductions potential from different land-based interventions per unit area per year, how will natural carbon sources and sinks evolve in the future, and what are their timeframes for delivery from implementation? For example, what levels of emissions reductions can be achieved by actions within the new Environmental Land Management Scheme’s outcomes framework, and from forestry, and over what time frames are these delivered?
- How do we better consider and adapt to the effects of climate change at regional and local levels, to develop a better understanding of conflicting demands?
- Climate projections (for example UK Climate Projections 18) indicate increased climate variability and extreme events (storms, heat waves, drought) in the future. How will these changes impact natural and human systems? How can we protect against damage caused by such increased variability?
- How do we make risk-reduction real at the local level where it is not realistic to extrapolate from large-scale datasets and statistics?
- How do we ensure a sustainable economic recovery post COVID-19 with environmental outcomes built in; and what is the potential for rural communities and businesses to contribute?
- Improve fish stock assessments over a greater range of species and improve management of freshwater, migratory, and marine fisheries, and protected species
- What is the evidence on the most efficient means of securing environmental enhancement through the planning process? What is the evidence on how environmental and biodiversity gains agreed through the planning process are realised and sustained?
- Assess socio-economic information to support and incentivise a change to secure the long-term sustainability of seafood exploitation whilst reducing the environmental impact of exploitation
- Consistent and long-term environmental monitoring: Time-series increase in value for ecology and policy making as they grow in length. Decades of data are required to answer emerging questions around, for example, climate change impacts on biodiversity and the efficacy of management measures
- Which practises can most effectively reduce emissions of GHG (including CH4 and N2O) from agriculture, waste, and wastewater, land-use, and F-gases in the UK and internationally?
- How are perceptions of international trade affected by the inclusion of sustainability and welfare provisions in trade agreements?