Final Report Summary - LUMAN (Land Use Modelling and Analysis Network)
The final exchanges in the Luman project took place in 2014. Brendan Williams University College Dublin visited Landcare New Zealand in June 2014 for meetings and presentations in Auckland and Alexander Herzig of New Zealand Landcare visited Dublin in November 2014 for meetings and project work at University College Dublin. LUMAN was originally scheduled to being in January 2010, due to issues with contracting the commencement of LUMAN was delayed to to November 2010. The delay had a significant impact on the progression of the project by shifting exchanges by a full year, which necessitated furtherl rounds of exchange rescheduling to accommodate the later start date.
In addition due to the small amount of funding for EU to New Zealand exchanges the focus of the project had to switch to UCD playing a hosting role for incoming exchange visits to a greater degree than originally planned. This low level of funding and self-funding of EU partners to visit partner EU institutions at the same time as NZ partners exchanges hinders the opportunities for full LUMAN participation Partners were able to self-fund such activities as occurred with Summer Workshop in 2013 at UCD. Different schedules, project pressures and funding models make such opportunities more challenging and require substantially more coordinated planning and consideration of financing issues.
These exchanges completed the exchange programme which had commenced in 2010 on research areas covering themes on current and emerging research in land-use characterisation and modelling, agent-based modelling, integrated modelling frameworks and approaches and their application to policy, as well as green infrastructure and sustainable urban and building design.
From a UCD perspective, contributions included follow on research from the recently completed MOLAND project, which had developed a regional, spatially explicit land-use model to explore future scenarios of development for Dublin and environs. LCR research focused on development of landscape systems modelling, the Land Use Management and Analysis Support System (LUMASS) Framework and agent-based modelling.
Discussions and collaborations also focused on comparing and contrasting land-use policy and planning between Ireland and New Zealand. Ireland has both national and local land use planning, including a National Spatial Plan with Regional authorities having relatively less power. In contrast, New Zealand has strong local land-use planning and strong regional resource management, with comparatively little national guidance or planning. Researchers shared similar challenges about how to engage with policy making interests and planning, including both transfer and go-generation of knowledge, and how to transfer and embed new tools and scientific applications effectively for policy and planning support.
During the project period important institutional research changes occurred at UCD.
The Urban Environment Institute, which was the original host of the LUMAN project, became a part of the new Earth Institute. Two of the UCD LUMAN participants had changed roles in the intervening period limiting their involvement in exchanges.
The new Earth Institute(www.ucd.ie/earth) is funded through PRTLI V (Programme for Research in Third Level Institutes) administered by the Ireland Higher Education Authority (Irish government funded with activities at the Institute clustered around three main strands:
• Earth Resources Characterisation
• Climate Adaptation, Mitigation and Geohazards
• Smart Cities & Infrastructure.
Outcomes
Our conclusions following a series of research meetings in Dublin hosted by UCD and with participation of NZ Landcare and VITO Belgium on the needs of interaction between effective research in these areas and policy makers included:
• Research practice and experience shows policy-makers are not particularly concerned with the science from the bottom up. Rather, they have budgets available for solving particular problems and hence want solutions presented, if possible, in an easy-to present and digest format. Further, they are not overly concerned with the tools utilised.As researchers we are aware that effective research requires that scientists present the facts rather than just what policy-makers have as an immediate policy priority.
In particular EC legislative requirements often require very swift response on reporting research leading to a mismatch between research being carried out with a long term scientific purpose and immediate policy needs. For example in the area of hazardous substances in water (part of Water Framework Directive (WFD)) data maybe required almost straight away at city/authority level while scientists are likely to prefer a longer timeline to implement effective and robust monitoring systems.
Following these meeting, it was agreed to identify possible future collaborative bids via the EU FP7 environment call. The main outcome to date has been the development of significant and ongoing relationships among UCD, VITO, and LCR staff which have provided valuable insights and feedback. In addition as a result of the relationship building, a jointly convened session and workshop at the International Modelling and Software Society Biennial Conference in Leipzig, Germany was held in July 2012 (unscheduled activity). The session and workshop involved engagement with participants from other jurisdictions including Germany, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the UK, and provided a good forum to showcase and discuss a range of land-use modelling and analysis projects, approaches, and techniques. It is hoped and expected that the relationships developed by the Luman exchanges will contribute to further valuable research collaborations in future years.
In addition due to the small amount of funding for EU to New Zealand exchanges the focus of the project had to switch to UCD playing a hosting role for incoming exchange visits to a greater degree than originally planned. This low level of funding and self-funding of EU partners to visit partner EU institutions at the same time as NZ partners exchanges hinders the opportunities for full LUMAN participation Partners were able to self-fund such activities as occurred with Summer Workshop in 2013 at UCD. Different schedules, project pressures and funding models make such opportunities more challenging and require substantially more coordinated planning and consideration of financing issues.
These exchanges completed the exchange programme which had commenced in 2010 on research areas covering themes on current and emerging research in land-use characterisation and modelling, agent-based modelling, integrated modelling frameworks and approaches and their application to policy, as well as green infrastructure and sustainable urban and building design.
From a UCD perspective, contributions included follow on research from the recently completed MOLAND project, which had developed a regional, spatially explicit land-use model to explore future scenarios of development for Dublin and environs. LCR research focused on development of landscape systems modelling, the Land Use Management and Analysis Support System (LUMASS) Framework and agent-based modelling.
Discussions and collaborations also focused on comparing and contrasting land-use policy and planning between Ireland and New Zealand. Ireland has both national and local land use planning, including a National Spatial Plan with Regional authorities having relatively less power. In contrast, New Zealand has strong local land-use planning and strong regional resource management, with comparatively little national guidance or planning. Researchers shared similar challenges about how to engage with policy making interests and planning, including both transfer and go-generation of knowledge, and how to transfer and embed new tools and scientific applications effectively for policy and planning support.
During the project period important institutional research changes occurred at UCD.
The Urban Environment Institute, which was the original host of the LUMAN project, became a part of the new Earth Institute. Two of the UCD LUMAN participants had changed roles in the intervening period limiting their involvement in exchanges.
The new Earth Institute(www.ucd.ie/earth) is funded through PRTLI V (Programme for Research in Third Level Institutes) administered by the Ireland Higher Education Authority (Irish government funded with activities at the Institute clustered around three main strands:
• Earth Resources Characterisation
• Climate Adaptation, Mitigation and Geohazards
• Smart Cities & Infrastructure.
Outcomes
Our conclusions following a series of research meetings in Dublin hosted by UCD and with participation of NZ Landcare and VITO Belgium on the needs of interaction between effective research in these areas and policy makers included:
• Research practice and experience shows policy-makers are not particularly concerned with the science from the bottom up. Rather, they have budgets available for solving particular problems and hence want solutions presented, if possible, in an easy-to present and digest format. Further, they are not overly concerned with the tools utilised.As researchers we are aware that effective research requires that scientists present the facts rather than just what policy-makers have as an immediate policy priority.
In particular EC legislative requirements often require very swift response on reporting research leading to a mismatch between research being carried out with a long term scientific purpose and immediate policy needs. For example in the area of hazardous substances in water (part of Water Framework Directive (WFD)) data maybe required almost straight away at city/authority level while scientists are likely to prefer a longer timeline to implement effective and robust monitoring systems.
Following these meeting, it was agreed to identify possible future collaborative bids via the EU FP7 environment call. The main outcome to date has been the development of significant and ongoing relationships among UCD, VITO, and LCR staff which have provided valuable insights and feedback. In addition as a result of the relationship building, a jointly convened session and workshop at the International Modelling and Software Society Biennial Conference in Leipzig, Germany was held in July 2012 (unscheduled activity). The session and workshop involved engagement with participants from other jurisdictions including Germany, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the UK, and provided a good forum to showcase and discuss a range of land-use modelling and analysis projects, approaches, and techniques. It is hoped and expected that the relationships developed by the Luman exchanges will contribute to further valuable research collaborations in future years.