Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) Fellowship, 2006

In 2005-6, I was chosen by NERC and POST for a 3-month Fellowship based in Westminster. POST is charged with providing both Houses of Parliament with independent and balanced advice on public policy issues with a basis in science and technology.

I worked on a briefing note on UK soil degradation, which can be found here. Soil degradation involves both the physical loss (erosion) and the reduction in quality of topsoil associated with nutrient decline and contamination. It affects soil quality for agriculture and has implications for the urban environment, pollution and flooding. Currently, 2.2 million tonnes of topsoil is eroded annually in the UK and over 17% of arable land shows signs of erosion. This POSTnote examines the nature and extent of soil degradation in the UK and the challenges and opportunities for soils in a changing climate. These include the potential for using degraded and polluted soils in the built environment for brownfield redevelopment as well as the possibility of using soils to mitigate carbon emissions.

My Fellowship also involved:

• Identifying relevant emerging and recent EU and UK legislation and research in the environment, climate change and energy spheres;
• Collecting information on Government and Parliamentary Enquiries and communicating their findings to a wide audience;
• Making contacts with researchers and policy makers in the environmental sector;
• Organising and leading meetings of Stakeholder groups;
• Horizon scanning of upcoming policy issues in the energy and environment sector and producing short summaries of recent developments;
• Proposing future energy and environment topics for research at POST.