Energy & Environment

Advancing research on energy solutions, environmental science, and biodiversity.

Projects

Biodiversity beyond protected areas	Recent assessments of the threats to biodiversity indicate that both climate change and human impact will put increasing pressure upon existing protected areas and that much biodiversity conservat... Read More »
Biodiversity technologies	Biodiversity technologies research in Oxford is focussed on the use of well-established and newly emerging methodologies to record, value and map biodiversity from individual species through to la... Read More »
Bushmeat Hunting in Central Africa	Bushmeat hunting is a crucial issue for both wildlife conservation and human well-being. Increases in human population density, commercial trade in bushmeat, and access to forests through logging ... Read More »
Carbon and Energy Reduction in Transport	For any transport model to be truly useful it must take account of the interactions between technology and society. Our ambition is to develop a ‘whole system’ model in the way we believe will de... Read More »
Carbon sequestration	This project will focus on carbon sequestration. The deep oceans represent a possible location for storage of CO2 released by fossil-fuel burning. Whether we choose to use this store must be info... Read More »
Conserving the world's botanical resources	Confronted with complex and accelerating environmental change, the need to document the many thousands of plant species that constitute the world’s botanical resources, and to provide a scientific... Read More »
Deforestation in West Africa	Tropical deforestation contributes around 15% of current climate change. International action on slowing down rates of tropical deforestation is one aspect of climate change negotiations that has ... Read More »
Deforestation policies: Actors, Interests and Ideas	Although REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) has become the central focus of deforestation policy and practice globally, there is no globally accepted implementati... Read More »
Ecological and evolutionary processes	It is well known that ecological processes are relevant to biodiversity conservation because they create ecological conditions necessary for resilience, persistence and the prevention of threshold... Read More »
Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation	This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of collaborators from universities (Southampton, Oxford, Rutgers and the Australian National University), a policy think-tank (Overseas Devel... Read More »
Emerging forms of food consumer behaviour and food governance	Emerging Forms of Food Consumer Behaviour and Food Governance This project will examine ways in which new media shape consumer activism and food governance. All of the team are from the Oxford F... Read More »
Geoengineering ethics & governance	This project explores and informs the ethical principles and governance frameworks associated with geoengineering.
High-efficiency low-cost photovoltaic cells	We are using mathematical modelling to help with the design of high-efficiency low-cost photovoltaic cells. The model is based on experiments carried out in the Clarendon Laboratory and they will... Read More »
Higher efficiency energy extraction	The primary objective of this project is to move the tidal energy industry into its second generation. First generation tidal devices are best suited to high-flow speed tidal sites. To brin... Read More »
How can science inform resource stewardship?	What can we learn from mismatches, failures and successes in the use of scientific information in resource stewardship? How can information be used effectively, despite varying levels of uncertai... Read More »
Implications for food production of adaptation to environmental change with an ageing agricultural sector	This multi-disciplinary project will combine the expertise of the Institute of Population Ageing (part of the Social Sciences Division), and the Department of Zoology (part of the Mathematical, P... Read More »
Improving nuclear materials for the next generation	This project aims to develop methods for quantitative three-dimensional characterisation of damage nucleation in advanced nuclear materials (e.g. graphite and SiC-SiC composites), using high-resol... Read More »
Increasing crop yields; alleviating food security concerns	In the next 40 years, the worlds' population will increase from 6 billion to 9 billion, with most of the increase occurring in the developing world. To avoid food shortages on an unprecedented glo... Read More »
Managing forests in a changing climate	Trees have historically been valued for the timber that they produce and for the land on which they grow. However, natural forest ecosystems contain the majority of terrestrial biodiversity and tr... Read More »
Multilevel forest governance	This project examines the evolution and interaction of state and non-state forest governance from local to global levels. It draws on both case study work and large N international comparisons to ... Read More »
Ocean acidification	This project will focus on ocean acidification. Increasing CO2 levels have the inevitable consequence of decreasing ocean pH with profound consequences for ocean chemistry and biology. The Institu... Read More »
Ocean carbon uptake	This project will focus on ocean carbon uptake. As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, so do those in seawater so that some CO2 is removed from the atmosphere. Future ocean uptake of CO2 is sensitive to ... Read More »
Ocean circulation	This research will look at Ocean circulation. The pattern and strength of the large-scale ocean circulation is the key factor controlling the rates at which the ocean uptakes heat and carbon. More... Read More »
Protected area effectiveness	Protected areas have long been recognised as an important tool for protecting biodiversity, and are now increasingly recognised for their role in protecting carbon; recent global analyses by UNEP-... Read More »
QUBE: Qasi-Brittle fracture: a 3D experimentally-validated approach	By improving basic understanding of damage mechanisms, we aim to create a framework to predict fracture behaviour and strength of quasi-brittle materials, validated by unique experimental observa... Read More »
Reliability in climate prediction	The aim of this project is to develop rigorously justifiable methodologies for next generation comprehensive Climate and Earth-System Models. To increase confidence in the reliability of climate ... Read More »
Resource stewardship: a multi-scale, multi-dimensional problem	This project will develop out of previous projects conducted in the Resource Stewardship Programme, and apply those findings to develop a completely new understanding of the way in which impacts ... Read More »
Sea-level rise	This project will focus on rising sea levels. As well as their active role in the carbon cycle, the oceans are responding to change in the 21st Century by increasing their volume. Resulting sea-le... Read More »
The food system and health, development and the environment	Global food systems are highly complex. They are both influenced by and have influences on health, economic development and the environment. They will face considerable strain over the coming dec... Read More »
What are our climate alternatives?	The Climate Alternatives Programme is a strand of research in the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, co-directed by Professor Steve Rayner. The programme investigates ways to stimulate energy moder... Read More »