Lead supervisor:
Prof Damian Maye 
Other supervisor(s):
- Prof Julie Urquhart
- Prof Julie Ingram
Start date: October 2024 (Full time)
Award: Collaborative
Subject Pathway:
Environmental Planning
Thematic Cluster:
Place, Environment and Development Cluster
In partnership with:
Farming for climate resilience: Analysis of farmer attitudes and decision-making in a rural Wales context
The Welsh Government is legally bound to improving the environmental well-being of Wales (Welsh Government, 2015). This means moving towards climate resilience. Climate resilience means having the ability to prepare for, adapt to, and recover from impacts of the changing climate (C2ES, 2019). This can be used as a discursive strategy to encompass mitigation and adaptation, as well as measures to limit risk – such as the push for net zero. Around 90% of land in Wales is used for agriculture (Devenish, 2022) which means that farmers and land owners have the potential to play a significant role in this.
This PhD work has two main aims:
- To understand Welsh farmer attitudes and decision making around climate resilience, and
- To explore the utility of serious games as a research tool in an agri-environmental policy context.
Serious games are an increasingly popular research tool in the environmental social sciences and may offer a suitable method for creatively, efficiently, and flexibly investigating farmer attitudes and decision making around agri-environmental policy. The game will be designed through conversation with farmers and subject experts, before being used as a group discussion facilitation tool alongside one-on-one interviews in two case study areas in Wales. The combination of climate resilience goals and implementation of post-Brexit policy, such as the ongoing Sustainable Farming Scheme, means Wales is moving through a period of land use policy change, making research investigating farmer decision making and the methods that can be used to more effectively investigate this particularly timely.
Bibliography
Welsh Government. Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 [Internet]. Statute Law Database; 2015. Available from: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2015/2/contents
C2ES. Center for climate and energy solutions. 2019. What is climate resilience and why does it matter? Available from: https://www.c2es.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/what-is-climate-resilience.pdf
Devenish, K. (2022). The Farming Sector in Wales Research Briefing (Issue July). www.senedd.wales
Biography
Prior to joining the CCRI for PhD study I completed a Psychology BSc at the University of Leeds, and worked as both a Graduate Research Assistant and Research Assistant at the James Hutton Institute's Social, Economic, and Geographic Sciences Department in Aberdeen. In my free time I enjoy helping my parents on their farm in Mid-Wales.
Cyn ymuno â CCRI ar gyfer astudiaeth PhD, cwblhaodd Chloe BSc Seicoleg ym Mhrifysgol Leeds, a gweithiodd fel Cynorthwywr Ymchwil Graddedig a Chynorthwywr Ymchwil yn Adran Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol, Economaidd a Daearyddol, Sefydliad James Hutton yn Aberdeen. Yn ei hamser hamdden mae hi'n mwynhau helpu ei rhieni ar eu fferm yng Nghanolbarth Cymru.