Co-Opt research project meeting in St Andrews

Thursday 6 October 2022

Academics from Cranfield University, University of Liverpool, the National Oceanography Centre and SGSD, gathered in St Andrews 27-30 September 2022 for a meeting of the NERC-ESRC Co-Opt project 2021-2024, hosted by MACE research team lead Dr Tim Stojanovic and Dr Elina Apine (PDRA).

Co-Opt team at Irvine building

On September 28 they were out in the field at Grangemouth on the upper Forth Estuary where the project team saw the site of the £225million proposed coastal flood defence scheme, the biggest in Scotland; then along the shore at the RSPB owned Skinflats Managed Realignment reserve (also field site for school PhD student Alex Houston), where the old sea wall was breached in 2018 to create 11 hectares of new saltmarsh; then further along the shore at Airth where a small settlement, population 1000, is close to the estuary- a flood defence scheme has recently been assessed as low priority for funding to the concern of residents. These three scenarios present in miniature a spectrum from grey (hard engineered) to green (nature based) solutions with ‘do nothing’ and hybrid options in-between.  The project team debated what ‘sustainability’ means in a context characterised by limited finances, and changing coasts impacted by climate.

The CoOpt project will contribute to better informed decisions via: more accurate downscaling of climate change projections for sea level rise, coastal flooding and erosion; incorporating nature better into the cost-benefit analysis through ecosystem service valuations; and partnerships with coastal stakeholders, including understanding about dynamics of the social acceptability of schemes.

The team also had a field visit to West Sands and the Eden, where we are working with local stakeholders including Fife Coast and Countryside Trust and the Links Trust- data from the project will likely form a resource for our students in the new VIP module on the Eden led by Dr Antje Brown.

Co-Opt team and local stakeholders on West Sands

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