Huw Irranca-Davies, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs in the Welsh Government, has learned about a UKCEH-led programme that is providing evidence to support policies relating to sustainable land management, mitigating climate change and halting biodiversity loss.
During a visit to the Henfaes Research Centre near Bangor, Mr Irranca-Davies got to see first-hand some of the research being carried out as part of the Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring and Modelling Programme (ERAMMP), which was commissioned by the Welsh Government.
Work by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and partners provides evidence to help build social, economic and environmental resilience for future generations. During his visit on 23 May 2024, the Cabinet Secretary was shown how measurements are taken and heard about the opportunities and limitations of carbon capture in soil.
ERAMMP collects vast amounts of data across the Welsh landscape, relating to habitats, birds, pollinators, soils, headwater streams, ponds, historic environment features and public rights of way. The data are used to identify long-term environmental trends, model change and future impact of land use and management to support the Welsh Government in developing the Sustainable Land Management policy.
Mr Irranca-Davies was fascinated to see how ERAMMP monitoring and modelling works, adding: “I really appreciate the work undertaken by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology over the last 10 years to support Welsh Government environmental policy including the areas of land use, climate change and biodiversity.”
Professor Bridget Emmett of UKCEH, who leads ERAMMP, says: “We welcome the major commitment the Welsh Government has made over the last 10 years to funding long term integrated monitoring, expert review and modelling work by the ERAMMP team. Working with our partners we are proud to have helped develop a robust scientific platform to help inform policy development and assessment in Wales.”
The Cabinet Secretary was particularly interested to hear about recent work to identify the limits of actions to maximise soil carbon sequestration which contributes to the Welsh agriculture and land-use sector reaching Net Zero.
It has concluded that adopting these actions in all soils across Wales would offset Welsh agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by no more than 10% which is less than the amount currently envisaged by some parts of the farming community.
Find out more about ERAMMP on the programme's website erammp.wales