286 publications from this institution
Urbanization is a global trend, and consequently the quality of urban environments is increasingly important for human health and wellbeing. Urban life-style is typically associated with low physical activity and sometimes with high mental stress, both contributing to an increasing burden of diseases. Nature-based solutions that make effective use of ecosystem services, particularly of cultural ecosystem services (CES), can provide vital building blocks to address these challenges. This paper argues that, the salutogenic, i.e. health-promoting effects of CES have so far not been adequately recognised and deserve more explicit attention in order to enhance decision making around health and wellbeing in urban areas. However, a number of research challenges will need to be addressed to reveal the mechanisms, which underpin delivery of urban CES. These include: causal chains of supply and demand, equity, and equality of public health benefits promoted. Methodological challenges in quantifying these are discussed. The paper is highly relevant for policy makers within and beyond Europe, and also serves as a review for current researchers and as a roadmap to future short- and long-term research opportunities.
Ongoing investigation of the ecohydrological conditions at four west coast dunefields (Ainsdale, Newborough Warren, Whiteford Burrows and Braunton Burrows) has recently been focused at Braunton in North Devon. BGS Opportunity Funds, coupled with the acquisition by CEH of a pneumatic portable auger, has enabled investigation and sampling from cores taken from ‘deep’ boreholes beneath the high dunes at Braunton along the existing Sandy Lane Shore Slack transect. Work has previously focused on the slack floors and the shallow water table beneath them. Analyses of chemistry, stable isotopes, SF6, as well as grain size and falling head permeability will, in due course, enable a better understanding of groundwater provenance in the dune fields and of the recharge processes away from the dune slack floors. Preliminary results are described. Further data are still awaited and will be incorporated in a future report. A way forward is described which will deliver peer reviewed papers on the deep drilling work at Braunton, a paper on work at Whiteford and detailed investigation funded largely by Natural England and CEH at four new sites. These sites are likely to include two acid coastal dunes on the North Sea Coast, which will contrast with the alkaline sites on the west coast, one in Cumbria and one elsewhere.
