Alma Economics’ Post

📝 New survey! NatureScot has commissioned Alma Economics, in partnership with James Hutton Institute, to understand the land cover and habitat data needs in #Scotland. We are exploring how this data is used, identifying gaps, and finding ways to improve its accessibility and impact across sectors. If you are a user of land cover and habitat data published by NatureScot, we want to hear from you! Why participate? Your input will directly inform strategies for future data provision, helping ensure Scotland’s land cover and habitat data meet user needs and supports emerging land-use policies. By participating, you’ll contribute to an anonymised report for NatureScot, offering an opportunity to provide candid feedback on the use, need and value of these datasets.  Survey details:  - Takes around 10 minutes to complete.  - Mostly multiple-choice questions with space to share your thoughts.  - Optional: Volunteer for an interview at the end.    📅 Deadline: Monday, 20th January, 11 pm.   🔗Take the survey here: https://lnkd.in/d4wMAByp  

Another Year Down, Another Level Up! 🚀 With 2025 hot on the horizon, we're thrilled to reflect on our year of incredible growth and achievement. Before we do, we’d like to extend the warmest ‘Thank you’ to not only our new clients but also our longstanding clients and project teams. For the unwavering support, diversity of project opportunities and stream of referrals you send our way each week, we couldn’t be more thankful and we very much look forward to strengthening these relationships as we move into 2025.  Here's a quick recap of what we've accomplished over the 2024 season: ➡️Team Expansion: We have grown from a small but mighty operation of one to a dynamic team of five, bringing in new expertise and broadening our service offerings. ➡️Client Growth: We've welcomed new clients, including five planning consultancies, and received numerous referrals from our extended network. ➡️Project Diversity: We've taken on exciting new projects in solar, battery storage, commercial ventures, and promotional sites, while continuing to deliver exceptional work for our residential and public housing clients. ➡️Digital Presence: We've rebranded our website and released a series of informative infographics to help simplify environmental survey processes for our audience. 🌳🦇Fieldwork: Our dedicated team has conducted over 278 site visits, including 63 bat emergence surveys and 74 UKHab surveys to deliver over 114 completed projects! With the best yet to come (watch this space!) we're incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with such amazing clients and project teams on innovative sustainable projects across Bristol and the South West. From all of us at Luscinia Ecology, Greg Nightingale MCIEEM Jennifer Senft Lorna Roberts Carmella Granato and Nea Steele, here's to another year of growth, innovation and building strong relationships! and bats... lot's of bats. 🦇🥂 #environmentalconsultancy #bristolecology #UKEcology #TeamGrowth #YearinReview #happynewyear

📢 In her blog for #LSEProgressingPlanning, Meg Hennessy (LSE Geography) summarizes insights from a recent LSE roundtable on balancing competing demands for housing, infrastructure, biodiversity, and well-being. ❓ How can we maximize land’s value? https://buff.ly/3Ne9PbL

🗺️ Almost a century ago, Sir L. Dudley Stamp set up the first systematic land utilisation survey of Great Britain in response to significant changes in land use. 📍This pioneering, field-by-field, survey covered nearly 90% of Great Britain in meticulous detail, forming a permanent record of the landscape in the 1930s. The survey inspired Andrew Suggitt and Alistair Auffret while they were postdoctoral researchers at the University of York. Catching up over coffee, they realised this historic resource could be used to measure land use changes in Great Britain over the 20th century. ☕ 🛰️ In our latest geovisualisation, learn how Andy and Alistair used digital techniques and satellite data to first digitise the survey and then compare it with current land usage, and what impact their research has had on understanding biodiversity loss in Britain. Read more here 👉 www.rgs.org/LandUseChange 1️⃣ 📷 Land use was mapped for (a) the historical time period (LUSGB 1930−40s, copyright Giles N. Clark) and (b) the modern time period (LCM 2007) at 25mx25m resolution in broad land-use categories. 2️⃣ 📷 ‘Land conversion’ map, where values indicate the proportion of 25mx25m pixels within each 10kmx10km square that changed category between the two time periods, interval ~75 years. #Geovisualisation #Mapping #LandUseChange

"Public lands are typically established in recognition of their unique ecological value, yet both ecological and social values of public lands change over time, along with human distribution and land use." Just as we manage our own life, we have to keep in mind our changing environment and assess the long term. https://lnkd.in/eqRYV8jm #management #publiclands #ecologicalvalue

Our next webinar event on October 9 puts focus on Decision Tools for Local Governments that are responding to ecosystems in distress. In other words, relevant to everyone! Vibrant Cities Lab PlanIT Geo™ i-Tree Tools #Sustainability💗 🌳 https://lnkd.in/eSjna4EV

[New Paper]: Spatial scale drives pedodiversity-elevation relationship in Botswana Here, we examine pedodiversity (#soildiversity) driven by elevation, focusing explicitly on spatial scale. Understanding this relationship is crucial due to its implications for #soilmanagement, #biodiversityconservation, and #monitoringerosion. However, most studies overlook the influence of spatial scale on this relationship, often reporting a one-sided perspective. Using machine learning coupled with statistical models, we demonstrate that this relationship is highly dependent on spatial scale. This highlights the importance of considering spatial scale as a critical factor in understanding soil formation linked to soil forming factors like elevation. Authors: Ndiye Kebonye | Ruhollah Taghizadeh | Kingsley John, Ph.D, PAg | Prince Chapman Agyeman (Ph.D) | Nafiseh Kakhani | Zibanani Seletlo | Lesego Motlhetlhi | Boineelo Moyo | Prof. Dr. Thomas Scholten For more details, we refer readers to this link:

According to the USDA, one out of every three bites of food we eat is dependent on pollinators. Source: https://lnkd.in/ew63PPWX. Want to learn how to prepare a site for pollinators? Sign up for this FREE webinar! #pollinators #bees #foodsecurity #earthday

Glossary Alert 🚨 For centuries, human activities have shaped and transformed our landscapes. Are you familiar with the term land-use change? 🤔 🔍Explore other terms on our website. 🔗https://lnkd.in/di4WT7XH #Benchmarks #Glossary #SoilHealthBenchmarks #SustainableLandUse

🚨 New Preprint Alert! 🚨 I'm excited to share our latest work on **"Evacuation patterns and socioeconomic stratification in the context of wildfires in Chile,"** now available on arXiv. An awesome collaboration with Márton Karsai, Elisa Omodei, Kyriaki Kalimeri, Timur Naushirvanov and Erick Elejalde from Central European University, ISI Foundation, UNICEF, L3S Research Center and Ingeniería UDD. In this study, we dive deep into the impact of wildfires on human mobility, with a particular focus on **socioeconomic factors.** Using high-definition mobile phone data from the Valparaíso wildfires (Feb 2-3, 2024), we tracked evacuation behaviors and discovered important patterns related to how different groups respond to such crises. Our **causal inference approach** (combining regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences) allowed us to isolate the effects of wildfires on evacuation patterns across different socioeconomic segments. Key findings: - Lower socioeconomic groups stayed away from their homes for longer periods. - Evacuation behaviors were chaotic at first, but later people gravitated towards areas with similar socioeconomic status. - Those in lower socioeconomic strata moved less and spent more time in temporary shelters. These insights shed light on the unequal burden of climate-driven disasters like wildfires, highlighting the importance of incorporating **socioeconomic considerations** into disaster response planning. 🔗 You can check out the full preprint here: [https://lnkd.in/eTjDCRbG) #Wildfires #ClimateChange #MobilityAnalysis #CausalInference #SocioeconomicStratification #EvacuationPatterns #DataScience #Research