Cool iCASP News – Winter 25

Welcome to the winter edition of our news bulletin. It features: Our plans for Confluence 2025 A £30,000 successful bid for the Digital Smart Flood Warning System for Surface Water More popular freshwater quality webinars A call for sponsors for the NFM Community of Practice Peatland restoration work with the #GreatNorthBog coalition as part of … Read more

Risks of nature commodification in the UK’s Green Finance Strategy: a document analysis

Ruth Bookbinder, Julia Martin-Ortega, Joshua Cohen – University of Leeds Aims and approach This report marks an initial step in our efforts to understand how risks in nature commodification are captured in green finance policy in the UK. It presents an analysis based on 19 policy and advisory documents identified from a public presentation of … Read more

Unlocking Policy for Nature Based Solutions: Online Survey

We are looking for practitioners to help us shape policies to support the delivery of more widespread use of evidence-based Nature Based Solutions (NBS). As part of a project funded by Research England, Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme (iCASP), based at the University of Leeds, is conducting a survey to understand the main challenges faced by practitioners … Read more

Biosecurity course goes live – reducing the spread of Invasive Non Native Species

Pictured: Himalayan Balsam Invasive Non Native Species (INNS) are any non native animal or plants and they can cause significant damage to our environment. They affect the quality of freshwater, including water in our rivers, can clog up water systems and increase flood risk. Rather than focusing on treating INNS – prevention needs to be … Read more

Over £14m funds announced for new research into land use and net zero

Five pioneering UK research projects have been given a share of £14.5 million funding by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and government partners to boost the UK’s efforts to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The ambitious projects aim to revolutionise agricultural practices, land use change and soil health in the pursuit of a more … Read more

Freshwater Quality News – autumn 2024

Update from Freshwater Quality Champion Team Welcome to the Freshwater Quality Programme autumn 2024 newsletter, which has been produced by the Champion team based in water@leeds, University of Leeds. The newsletter provides updates from the Champion team and the five research projects within the programme, which each focus on different aspects of water quality.

Trailblazing project gets off the ground to improve the mental health of people at high risk of flooding

A successful bid for £36,000 is to be used to help improve the mental well-being of communities at risk of flooding. The bid for funding by West Yorkshire Flood Innovation Programme (WYFLIP) has been approved during the Environment Agency’s national Flood Action Week by Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee. The money will be used … Read more

Help develop a new tool to better understand flooding in the Calder Valley – WYFLIP Accelerator project

Pictured demonstrating the spray can tool are Dr Stephanie Bond, iCASP impact translation fellow and Professor Steve Carver. We are asking practitioners or members of the Calderdale community whose role is connected with or who have experience of flooding, flood resilience or natural flood management in Calderdale to help us test an online map-based tool. … Read more