Jeremy Carter

Environmental planning and management in an age of uncertainty: The case of the Water Framework Directive

Scenario planning is one of the most prominent methods applied by organisations to assist long-term decision making. This paper uses a case study method to demonstrate how scenarios can be operationalised to inform future strategies and to challenge rigid silo-based decision making approaches. The WaterProof Northwest scenarios developed by the authors in collaboration with a range of stakeholders, and described within this paper, offer a platform for considering the future of the water environment. The scenarios were developed in the context of meeting the goals of the European Water Framework Directive. This Directive has the core aim of improving the chemical and ecological status of Europes water bodies. The scenarios highlight that water bodies in the case study area (the region of Northwest England) are impacted directly by a wide array of driving forces which will affect the state of the water environment over the coming decades. This analysis demonstrates that organisations responsible for creating and implementing long-term plans and policies to manage water are often far removed from the forces that will influence the effectiveness of the exercises that they are engaged in. The WaterProof Northwest scenarios highlight that organisations need different decision making approaches in order to adapt to modern environmental challenges. They also raise questions over whether environmental legislation such as the Water Framework Directive should incorporate a futures perspective in recognition of the wide ranging forces influencing their implementation.

Current Practice in the Strategic Environmental Assessment of Development Plans in England

Short M., Jones C., Carter J., Baker M. and Wood C. (2004) Current practice in the strategic environmental assessment of development plans in England, Reg. Studies 38, 177–190. In the UK, strategic environmental assessment has been applied to the full hierarchy of development plans in the form of environmental appraisal. Government guidance in England contains a forceful recommendation to local planning authorities to assess the environmental effects of proposed development plans by carrying out an environmental appraisal of their policies and proposals. This advice has grown in importance with the adoption of the European Directive on strategic environmental assessment. Research undertaken into current appraisal practice provides a context for the implementation of the Directive in England. The results show a broadly positive outlook towards strategic environmental assessment and a move towards using sustainability appraisal. Furthermore, they show other benefits from the process additional to assessing the core environmental impacts of the plan. However, it is clear that there remain major structural weaknesses and concerns in the manner in which strategic environmental assessment processes are implemented. Thus, more than two-thirds of the respondents to a survey stated that the appraisal had little or no influence on development plan objectives and policies, and nearly two-thirds believed that their plan would have developed in the same manner without any appraisal having been undertaken.

Stakeholder participation and the water framework directive: The case of the Ribble Pilot

Abstract The Water Framework Directive is the most significant piece of European water legislation to date. This paper looks at the Directives stakeholder participation requirements, which are crucial to its successful implementation, and represent one of its most novel and potentially far-reaching elements. The Ribble catchment in northwest England is part of a European pilot river basin network tasked by the European Commission with testing the Directives common implementation strategy guidance, which is designed to aid member states in meeting its requirements. The Ribble pilot, managed by the Environment Agency, is responsible for testing the stakeholder participation element of this guidance. This paper provides an overview of the early stages of the Ribble pilotsapproach, and discusses stakeholder participation in the context of the Water Framework Directive more broadly.

The Environmental Appraisal of National Park Management Plans in England and Wales

The Countryside Agency has recommended that national park authorities (NPAs) undertake an environmental appraisal of their national park management plans. A study of the appraisal practices of the NPAs of England and Wales has shown that, despite this guidance, the practice of environmental appraisal is uncommon but that a culture of applying sustainability appraisal is evolving. It is argued that the most likely explanation for this situation is the increasing influence of the concept of sustainable development on the workings of the national park management system. This broad policy development has manifested itself in a variety of ways, including the production of government guidance relating to sustainability appraisal and changes in best practice, each of which have influenced appraisal procedures in national parks. The wider implications of, and drivers behind, the evolution of appraisal procedure towards sustainability appraisal are thus identified and then discussed.

Adapting cities to climate change – exploring the flood risk management role of green infrastructure landscapes

There is now an emerging sense of the scope and nature of response that can be implemented at building and neighbourhood scales to help adapt cities and urban areas to the changing climate. In comparison, the role of larger natural and semi-natural landscapes that surround and permeate cities is less well understood. Addressing this knowledge gap, this paper outlines two case studies that describe and map the flood risk management functions offered by green infrastructure landscapes situated within the Urban Mersey Basin in North West England. The case studies establish that areas potentially exposed to flooding can be located at some distance, and within different jurisdictions, from upstream areas where the flood hazard may be generated and could be moderated via functions provided by green infrastructure landscapes. This raises planning and governance challenges connected to supporting and enhancing flood risk management functions provided by green infrastructure landscapes.

Adapting to Climate Change: Getting More from Spatial Planning

Given the severity of future climate change projections and associated risks to human and natural systems, societies are now faced with a strong imperative to develop adaptation policies and actions in response. Spatial planning, which is the process through which the development and use of land is visualised, negotiated and regulated, has an important role to play in adapting to the changing climate. Despite positive steps forward in some locations, there remains a gap between spatial planning’s potential capacity to support the achievement of adaptation goals and the realisation of this role in practice. This paper reports on the findings of an online Delphi survey undertaken to build understanding of the relationship between spatial planning and climate change adaptation. The survey secured the input of over 70 academics, planners and policy makers working across these fields in ten different countries. Its results offer insights on barriers inhibiting spatial planning’s contribution to adaptation, which range from overarching systemic issues through to those concerning the detailed workings of the planning system. The Delphi survey also identified solutions that could help build the capacity of spatial planning to progress the adaptation agenda. Approaches include enhancing the adaptation knowledge, skills and technical capacity of planners and applying different concepts and methods to align spatial planning more closely with adaptation goals. In presenting and analysing the results of the Delphi survey, the aim of this paper is to help build the capacity of policy makers, practitioners and researchers to adapt spaces and places for the changing climate.