October 2019 – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Flooding in the UK: Understanding the past and preparing for the future

Posted on October 25, 2019April 3, 2023 by janet.crompton

On the 16th of October 2019, Ivan Haigh Associate Professor in Coastal Oceanography at the University of Southampton – gave a presentation on the “characteristics and drivers of compound flooding events around the UK coast” at the BRIDGE research seminar in the School of Geographical Sciences. He began by outlining the seriousness of flood risk in the UK – it is the second highest civil emergency risk factor as defined by the Cabinet Office – before moving on to the first section of the talk on his work with the Environment Agency on its Thames Estuary 2100 plan (TE2100)[1].

Thames Estuary 2100 plan: 5-year review

The construction of a Thames barrier was proposed after severe flooding in London in 1953, and it eventually became operational 30 years later in 1983. Annually, the Thames barrier removes around £2bn of flood damage risk from London and is crucial to the future prosperity of the city in a changing environment.

The Thames Barrier in its closed formation. Image source: Thames Estuary 2100 Plan (2012)

Flood defences in the Thames estuary were assessed in the TE2100 plan, which takes an innovative “adaptive pathways management approach” to the future of these flood defences over the coming century. This approach means that a range of flood defence options are devised and the choice of which ones to implement is based upon the current environmental data and the latest models of future scenarios, in particular predictions of future sea level rise.

For this method to be effective, accurate observations of recent sea level changes must be made in order to determine which management pathway to implement and to see if these measurements fit with the predictions of future sea level rise used in the plan. This work is carried out in reviews of the plan at five-year intervals, and it was this work that Ivan and his colleagues were involved with.

There is significant monthly and annual variability in the local tide gauge records that measure changes in sea level, and this can make it difficult to assess whether there is any long-term trend in the record. Using statistical analysis of the tide gauge data, the team was able to filter 91% of the variability that was due to short term changes in atmospheric pressure and winds to reveal a trend of approximately 1.5 mm per year of sea level rise, in line with the predictions of the model that is incorporated into the TE2100 plan.

Compound flood events around the UK Coast

In the second half of his presentation, Ivan went on to discuss a recent paper he was involved with studying compound flood events around the UK (Hendry et al. 2019)[2]. A compound flood occurs when a storm surge, caused by low atmospheric pressure allowing the sea surface to rise locally, combines with river flooding caused by a large rainfall event. These can be the most damaging natural disasters in the UK, and from historical data sets stretching back 50 years at 33 tide gauges and 326 river stations, the team were able to determine the frequency of compound floods across the UK.

Along the west coast, there were between 3 and 6 compound flooding events per decade, whereas on the east coast, there were between 0 and 1 per decade. This difference between east and west is driven by the different weather patterns that lead to these events. On the west coast it is the same type of low-pressure system that causes coastal storm surges and high rainfall. However, on the east coast different weather patterns are responsible for high rainfall and storm surges, meaning it is very unlikely they could occur at the same time.

Number of compound flood events per decade at each of the 326 river stations in the study. Triangle symbols implies rover mouth on West coast, circles East coast and squares South coast. Image Source: Hendry et al. 2019 [2]

There is also significant variability along the west coast of the UK as well, and the team investigated whether the characteristics of the river catchments could impact the possibility of these compound flooding events occurring. They found that smaller river catchments, and steeper terrain within the catchments, increased the probability of these compound flooding events occurring as water from rainfall was delivered to the coast more quickly. From the improved understanding of the weather patterns behind compound flooding events that this work provides, the quality and timeliness of flood warnings could be improved.

From the question and answer session we heard that current flood risk assessments do not always include the potential for compound flood events, meaning flood risk could be underestimated along the west coast of the UK. We also heard that Ivan will be working with researchers in the hydrology group here at the University of Bristol to further the analysis of the impact of river catchment characteristics on the likelihood of compound flooding events, and then extending this analysis to Europe, North America and Asia.

References

[1] Environment Agency (2012), “Thames Estuary 2100 Plan”.
[2] Alistair Hendry, Ivan D. Haigh, Robert J. Nicholls, Hugo Winter, Robert Neal, Thomas Wahl, Amélie Joly-Laugel, and Stephen E. Darby, (2019). “Assessing the characteristics and drivers of compound flooding events around the UK coast”, Hydrology and Earth System Science, 23, 3117-3139.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute member Tom Mitcham. He is a PhD student in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol and is studying the ice dynamics of Antarctic ice shelves and their tributary glaciers.

Tom Mitcham

Read Tom’s other blog:
1. Just the tip of the iceberg: Climate research at the Bristol Glaciology Centre

Uncomfortable home truths: Why Britain urgently needs a low carbon heat strategy

Posted on October 17, 2019April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

A new report backed by MPs and launched by Minister for Climate Change Lord Duncan on 15 October 2019, calls for an urgent Green Heat Roadmap by 2020 to scale low carbon heating technologies and help Britain’s homeowners access the advice they need to take smarter greener choices on heating their homes. The year-long study by UK think-tank Policy Connect warns that the UK will miss its 2050 net-zero climate target “unless radical changes in housing policy, energy policy and climate policy are prioritised”. Dr Colin Nolden was at the launch on behalf of the Cabot Institute for the Environment and blogs here on the most interesting highlights of the report and questions raised.

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Policy Connect had invited a range of industry, policy, academic and civil society representatives to the launch of their Uncomfortable Home Truths report. The keynote, no less than Lord Duncan of Springbank, Minister for Climate Change, and the high-level panel consisting of Maxine Frerk, Grid Edge Policy (Chair), Alan Brown MP, House of Commons (SNP), Dr Alan Whitehead MP, House of Commons (Labour), Dhara Vyas, Citizens Advice, Adam Turk, BAXI Heating (sponsor) and Mike Foster, EUA (Energy & Utilities Alliance), (sponsor), had been briefed to answer tough questions from the crowd given the UK’s poor track record in the area of heat and home decarbonisation.

The event started with an introduction by Jonathan Shaw, Chief Executive of Policy Connect, who introduced the panel and officially launched the report. Uncomfortable Home Truths is the third report of the Future Gas Series, the first two of which focused on low-carbon gas options. This last report of the series shifts the focus from particular technologies and vectors towards heating, households and consumers. Jonathan subsequently introduced the keynote speaker Lord Duncan of Springbank, Minister for Climate Change.

Lord Duncan supported the publication of this report as timely and relevant especially in relation to the heat policy roadmap that government intends to publish in 2020. He stressed the importance of a cultural shift which needs to take place to start addressing the issue of heat at household and consumer level. He was adamant that the government was aligning its policies and strategies with its zero-carbon target according to the Committee on Climate Change and guided by science and policy. In this context he bemoaned the drive by some country representatives to put into question the targets of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change which he had witnessed as the UK’s key representative at the run-up to COP25 in Chile. The 2020 roadmap will report on the decisions which will need to be taken in homes and in technology networks, ranging from heat pumps to hydrogen and low-carbon electricity to support their decarbonisation. It requires cross-party support while depending on more research and learning from successful examples in other European countries.

Although Lord Duncan suggested that ‘it’s easier to decarbonise a power plant than a terraced house’, he told the audience to take encouragement from the fuel shift from coal towards gas starting half a century ago. But in this context he once again stressed the cultural shift which needs to go hand-in-hand with government commitment and technological progression, using the example of TV-chefs shunning electric hobs as an indication of our cultural affinity for gas. As long as heating and cooking are framed around fossil fuels, there is little space in the cultural imagination to encourage a shift towards more sustainable energy sources.

“The example of TV-chefs shunning electric hobs is an indication of our cultural affinity for gas”. Image source.

Among the questions following the keynote, one quizzed Lord Duncan about the process and politics of outsourcing carbon emissions. Lord Duncan stressed his support of Border Carbon Adjustments compliant with EU and global carbon policy ‘in lock-step with our partners’ to ensure that carbon emissions are not simply exported, which appears to support the carbon club concept. Another question targeted the UK’s favourable regulatory environment that has been created around gas, which has resulted in the EU’s lowest gas prices, while electricity prices are highest in Europe, due, among other things, to Climate Change Levies, which do not apply to gas, increasing by 46% on 1 April 2019. Lord Duncan pointed towards the ongoing review of policies ahead of the publication of the 2020 heat roadmap which will hopefully take a more vector- and technology-neutral approach. A subsequent rebuttal by a Committee on Climate Change (CCC) representative stressed the CCCs recommendation to balance policy cost between gas and electricity as on average only 20,000 heat pumps are sold in the UK every year (compared to 7 times as many in Sweden) yet the Renewable Heat Incentive is about to be terminated without an adequate replacement to support the diffusion of low-carbon electric heating technologies.

Lord Duncan stressed the need to create a simple ‘road’ which does not fall with changes in policy and once again emphasized the need for a cross-party road to support the creation of a low-carbon heating pathway. A UKERC representative asked about the government approach to real-world data as opposed to modelling exercises and their support for collaborative research projects as both modelling and competitive approaches have failed, especially in relation to Carbon Capture and Storage. Lord Duncan responded that the UK is already collaborating with Denmark and Norway on CCS and that more money is being invested into scalable and replicable demonstrators.

Following an admission wrapped in metaphors that a change in government might be around the corner and that roadmaps need to outlast such changes, Lord Duncan departed to make way for Joanna Furtado, lead author of the Policy Connect report. She gave a very concise overview of the main findings and recommendations in the report:

The 80% 2050 carbon emission reduction target relative to 1990 already required over 20,000 households to switch to low-carbon heating every week between 2025 and 2050. The zero-carbon target requires even more rapid decarbonisation yet the most successful policy constellations to date have only succeeded in encouraging 2,000 households to switch to low-carbon heating every week.
This emphasizes the importance of households and citizens but many barriers to their engagement persist such as privacy issues, disruption associated with implementation, uncertainly, low priority, lack of awareness and confusion around best approaches, opportunities, regulations and support.
Despite the focus on households, large-scale rollout also requires the development of supply chains so at-scale demonstrations need to go hand-in-hand with protection and engagement of households by increasing the visibility of successful approaches. Community-led and local approaches have an important role to play but better monitoring is required to differentiate between more and less successful approaches.
Protection needs to be changed to facilitate the inclusion of innovative technologies which are rarely covered while installers need to be trained to build confidence in their installations.
Regional intermediaries, such as those in Scotland and Wales, need to be established to coordinate these efforts locally while at national level a central delivery body such as the one established for the 2020 Olympics in London needs to coordinate the actions of the regional intermediaries.
Ultimately, social aspects are critical to the delivery of low-carbon heat, ranging from the central delivery body through regional intermediaries down to households and citizens.

Image source.

Chaired by Maxine Frerk of Grid Edge Policy, the panel discussion kicked off with Alan Brown who stressed the urgency of the heating decarbonisation issue as encapsulated by Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion and the need to operationalize the climate emergency into actions. He called for innovation in the gas grid in line with cautions Health and Safety Regulation alterations. Costs also need to be socialised to ensure that the low-carbon transition does not increase fuel poverty. His final point stressed the need reorganize government to make climate change and decarbonisation a number 1 priority.

Dr Alan Whitehead, who has been involved with the APPCCG from the beginning, emphasized how discussions around heat decarbonisation have progressed significantly in recent years and especially since the publication of the first report of this series. He suggested that the newest report writes the government roadmap for them. In relation to the wider context of decarbonising heat, Alan Whitehead encouraged a mainstreaming of heating literacy similar to the growing awareness of plastic. He also stressed how far the UK is lagging behind compared to other countries and this will be reflected in upcoming policies and roadmaps. As his final point Alan Whitehead cautioned that the low-intrusion option of gas-boiler upgrades from biomethane to hydrogen ignores the fact that greater change is necessary for the achievement of the zero-carbon target although he conceded that customer acceptance of gas engineer intervention appears to be high.

Dhara Vyas presented Citizens Advice perspective by stressing the importance of the citizen-consumer focus. Their research has revealed a lack of understanding among landlords and tenants of the rules and regulations that govern heat. She suggested that engagement with the public from the outset is essential to protect consumers as people are not sufficiently engaged with heating and energy in general. Even for experts it is very difficult to navigate all aspects of energy due to the high transaction costs associated with engagement to enable a transition on the scale required by government targets.

Finally, representatives of the two sponsors BAXI and the Energy & Utility Alliance made a rallying call for the transition of the gas grid towards hydrogen. Adam Turk emphasized the need to legislate and innovate appropriately to ensure that the 84% of households that are connected to the gas grid can receive upgrades to their boilers to make them hydrogen ready. Similarly, Mike Foster suggested that such an upgrade now takes less than 1 hour and that the gas industry already engages around 2 million consumers a year. Both suggested that the gas industry is well placed to put consumers at the heart of action. They were supported by several members of the audience who pointed towards the 150,000 trained gas service engineers and the ongoing distribution infrastructure upgrades towards plastic piping which facilitate a transition towards hydrogen. Other members of the audience, on the other hand, placed more emphasis on energy efficiency and the question of trust.

Sponsorship of the Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers, EUC (Energy & Utility Alliance) and BAXI Heating was evident in the title Future Gas Series and support for hydrogen and ‘minimal homeowner disruption’ boiler conversion to support this vector shift among members of the audience was evident. Nevertheless, several panel members, members of the audience and, above all, Lord Duncan of Springbank, stressed the need to consider a wider range of options to achieve the zero-carbon target. Electrification and heat pumps in particular were the most prominent among these options. Energy efficiency and reductions in energy demand, as is usual at such events, barely received a mention. I guess it’s difficult to cut a ribbon when there’s less of something as opposed to something new and shiny?

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This blog is written by Dr Colin Nolden, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Bristol Law School and Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Colin Nolden

AI & sustainable procurement: the public sector should first learn what it already owns

Posted on October 15, 2019April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

While carrying out research on the impact of digital technologies for public procurement governance, I have realised that the deployment of artificial intelligence to promote sustainability through public procurement holds some promise. There are many ways in which machine learning can contribute to enhance procurement sustainability.

For example, new analytics applied to open transport data can significantly improve procurement planning to support more sustainable urban mobility strategies, as well as the emergence of new models for the procurement of mobility as a service (MaaS).* Machine learning can also be used to improve the logistics of public sector supply chains, as well as unlock new models of public ownership of, for example, cars. It can also support public buyers in identifying the green or sustainable public procurement criteria that will deliver the biggest improvements measured against any chosen key performance indicator, such as CO2 footprint, as well as support the development of robust methodologies for life-cycle costing.

However, it is also evident that artificial intelligence can only be effectively deployed where the public sector has an adequate data architecture.** While advances in electronic procurement and digital contract registers are capable of generating that data architecture for the future, there is a significant problem concerning the digitalisation of information on the outcomes of past procurement exercises and the current stock of assets owned and used by the public sector. In this blog, I want to raise awareness about this gap in public sector information and to advocate for the public sector to invest in learning what it already owns as a potential major contribution to sustainability in procurement, in particular given the catalyst effect this could have for a more circular procurement economy.

Backward-looking data as a necessary evidence base

It is notorious that the public sector’s management of procurement-related information is lacking. It is difficult enough to have access to information on ‘live’ tender procedures. Accessing information on contract execution and any contractual modifications has been nigh impossible until the very recent implementation of the increased transparency requirements imposed by the EU’s 2014 Public Procurement Package. Moreover, even where that information can be identified, there are significant constraints on the disclosure of competition-sensitive information or business secrets, which can also restrict access.*** This can be compounded in the case of procurement of assets subject to outsourced maintenance contracts, or in assets procured under mechanisms that do not transfer property to the public sector.

Accessing information on the outcomes of past procurement exercises is thus a major challenge. Where the information is recorded, it is siloed and compartmentalised. And, in any case, this is not public information and it is oftentimes only held by the private firms that supplied the goods or provided the services—with information on public works more likely to be, at least partially, under public sector control. This raises complex issues of business to government (B2G) data sharing, which is only a nascent area of practice and where the guidance provided by the European Commission in 2018 leaves many questions unanswered.*

I will not argue here that all that information should be automatically and unrestrictedly publicly disclosed, as that would require some careful considerations of the implications of such disclosures. However, I submit that the public sector should invest in tracing back information on procurement outcomes for all its existing stock of assets (either owned, or used under other contractual forms)—or, at least, in the main categories of buildings and real estate, transport systems and IT and communications hardware. Such database should then be made available to data scientists tasked with seeking all possible ways of optimising the value of that information for the design of sustainable procurement strategies.

In other words, in my opinion, if the public sector is to take procurement sustainability seriously, it should invest in creating a single, centralised database of the durable assets it owns as the necessary evidence base on which to seek to build more sustainable procurement policies. And it should then put that evidence base to good use.

More circular procurement economy based on existing stocks

In my view, some of the main advantages of creating such a database in the short-, medium- and long-term would be as follows.

In the short term, having comprehensive data on existing public sector assets would allow for the deployment of different machine learning solutions to seek, for example, to identify redundant or obsolete assets that could be reassigned or disposed of, or to reassess the efficiency of the existing investments eg in terms of levels of use and potential for increased sharing of assets, or in terms of the energy (in)efficiency derived from their use. It would also allow for a better understanding of potential additional improvements in eg maintenance strategies, as services could be designed having the entirety of the relevant stock into consideration.

In the medium term, this would also provide better insights on the whole life cycle of the assets used by the public sector, including the possibility of deploying machine learning to plan for timely maintenance and replacement, as well as to improve life cycle costing methodologies based on public-sector specific conditions. It would also facilitate the creation of a ‘public sector second-hand market’, where entities with lower levels of performance requirements could acquire assets no longer fit for their original purpose, eg computers previously used in more advanced tasks that still have sufficient capacity could be repurposed for routine administrative tasks. It would also allow for the planning and design of recycling facilities in ways that minimised the carbon footprint of the disposal.

In the long run, in particular post-disposal, the existence of the database of assets could unlock a more circular procurement economy, as the materials of disposed assets could be reused for the building of other assets. In that regard, there seem to be some quick wins to be had in the construction sector, but having access to more and better information would probably also serve as a catalyst for similar approaches in other sectors.

Conclusion

Building a database on existing public sector-used assets as the outcome of earlier procurement exercises is not an easy or cheap task. However, in my view, it would have transformative potential and could generate sustainability gains not only aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of future public expenditure but, more importantly, at correcting or somehow compensating for the current environmental impacts of the way the public sector operates. This could make a major difference in accelerating emissions reductions and should consequently be a matter of sufficient priority for the public sector to engage in this exercise. In my view, it should be a matter of high priority.

* A Sanchez-Graells, ‘Some public procurement challenges in supporting and delivering smart urban mobility: procurement data, discretion and expertise’, in M Finck, M Lamping, V Moscon & H Richter (eds), Smart Urban Mobility – Law, Regulation, and Policy, MPI Studies on Intellectual Property and Competition Law (Berlin, Springer, 2020) forthcoming. Available on SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=3452045.

** A Sanchez-Graells, ‘Data-driven procurement governance: two well-known elephant tales’ (2019) Communications Law, forthcoming. Available on SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3440552.

*** A Sanchez-Graells, ‘Transparency and competition in public procurement: A comparative view on a difficult balance’, in K-M Halonen, R Caranta & A Sanchez-Graells (eds), Transparency in EU Procurements: Disclosure within public procurement and during contract execution, vol 9 EPL Series (Edward Elgar 2019) 33-56. Available on SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3193635.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute member Professor Albert Sanchez-Graells, Professor of Economic Law (University of Bristol Law School).

Albert Sanchez-Graells

CAKE: In memory of Dr Caroline Williams

Posted on October 1, 2019March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton

Image credit: Archivo General de Indias

It all started with a picture.

A picture of a 1773 eruption of Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador. Caroline, the historian, was fascinated by the writing. Alison and Kathy were interested in the details of the eruption: the two vents, the distribution of the lava bombs, the flow that blocked the river. Erica, the
paleoclimatologist, was the conduit between us, receiving the image from Caroline and passing it along to Alison and Kathy. And thus CAKE (Caroline-Alison-Kathy-Erica) was established.

Over the intervening years, we pursued several academic collaborations with students (one PhD and two MSc) that not only brought us together on questions of science and historical records, but also grew into a deep CAKE friendship, with shared dinners and social events in addition to a shared Dropbox folder and co-authored publications. Caroline taught us (the scientists) that the methodologies employed by data-driven historians are very similar to those used by scientists – find more than one source for an event, understand the perspective of that source and their reason for recording a story – and that historical archives are a vast and under-utilised source of information about past natural disasters and their impacts on local populations.

At the same time, we taught Caroline the value of accounts of the weather, or earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions, which she laughingly said that she had previously passed over in search of the real history, that related to the interactions of indigenous people and the Spanish.

Together we became increasingly committed to exploring and encouraging cross-disciplinary work between the humanities and the sciences, including not only shared methodology but also finding common ground in the questions that we were asking.

We saw it as a measure of achievement that by our first joint CAKE publication we had extended so far beyond any of our previous research that we were unable to self-cite (Observations of a stratospheric aerosol veil from a tropical volcanic eruption in December 1808: is this the Unknown ~1809 eruption? Guevara A. Williams C. A. Hendy E. Rust A. C. & Cashman K. V. (2014) In : Climate of the Past. 10 5 p.1707-1722; http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2014/september/unknown-eruption.html).

With a ratio of 3:1 scientists:historian, however, we recognise that Caroline travelled farther, academically, into our territory than we did into hers… we regret that we don’t have the time now to complete that voyage. We do note that she was starting to become well known among social-minded volcanologists in the UK, and that more than one scientist reached out to her to establish collaborations on volcano-related research. Similarly, with the climate modelling and meteorology data rescue communities in the UK and US.

We miss her greatly.

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This blog has been written in memory of Dr Caroline Williams who passed away recently. It was written by Dr Erica Hendy, Dr Alison Rust and Professor Kathy Cashman.

Caroline’s funeral will be held on Wednesday 2 October and a prize fund set up in her name. Further details are available on the tribute site: https://dr-caroline-williams.muchloved.com

Donations: ‘The Caroline Williams Prize in Latin American Studies’ has been set up and this leaflet indicates the various ways in which you can contribute to this. Please note the collection plate that will pass during the service is for donations to the Cathedral only.