Environment and energy

Natural Flood Management

Four page POSTnote, autumn 2011

Sustainable flood risk management emphasises the restoration or alteration of natural features over hard engineering. River floodplain restoration and upper river catchment land-management are both receiving increasing attention as cost-effective flood mitigation measures. This POSTnote will review the evidence for the effectiveness of these strategies for flood risk management, and investigate how they may complement, or conflict with, other objectives, such as reducing watercourse pollution or increasing biodiversity. For further information on this project, or to contribute, please contact Oliver Pescott.

Energy Security

Four page POSTnote, winter 2011

The Strategic Defence and Security Review of October 2010 recommended more robust reporting and monitoring against energy security objectives. This note discusses reasons for recent concern over energy security and considers the various ways in which it can be monitored. For further information on this project, or to contribute, please contact Dr Stephen Allen.

Climate Variability and Weather

Four page POSTnote, winter 2011

This POSTnote will consider the major internal processes affecting climate variability, whether the behaviour of these phenomena can be predicted with any accuracy and the likely impacts of climate change on their behaviour. For further information, please contact Matthew Ashfold.