UNITED KINGDOM

Project title/name: Development of the Forth Estuary Modelling System (FEMS)

Country : United Kingdom

Project location within the country: Firth of Forth and Forth Estuary, eastern Scotland

250,000 US$

Short project description: The formulation and development of a decision support and educational system for exploring management options in a large Scottish estuary with many stakeholders and many potentially conflicting demands on biotic and physical resources. The model is designed to make existing information more accessible, facilitate hypotheses testing, and foster collaboration between researchers working on these issues.

Description of the research programme: The Company’s research services fall within the wider remit of the Forth Estuary Forum. At the behest of the UK Government, the Forth Estuary Forum is developing a non-statutory Forth Integrated Management Strategy which will form the basis of a new participatory approach to management of the Forth estuary. It will enable users, planners, managers and developers to decide on the best balance of competing resource demands and environmental needs. It will furthermore aid the development of an integrated programme of social, environmental and economic improvements for future generations. The Forth Estuary Modelling System is a European Commission flagship project which constitutes part of the Forum's overall range of activities for implementing the Integrated Management Strategy.

Donor: European Commission and Scotish Natural Heritage

Department: EC - LIFE Environment Programme and Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme; SNH - Firths Initiatives

Client: Forth Estuary Forum

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Title of consulting services provided: Facilitation of the FEMS modelling workshop, Coordination of subsequent model development.

Description of services provided: The Company has adapted the Holling Adaptive Environmental Management system to the task of developing the FEMS estuary simulator. Firstly, it facilitated a one-week workshop of more than 25 scientists and coastal specialists to develop a prototype of the model. The workshop employed a combination of plenary, modelling and demonstration sessions to guide participants through an 11-step model formulation programme designed to capture the information and understanding represented in all participants attending the workshop. Working closely with the Forth Estuary Forum organisers over a 2.5 year period, the Company's consultant then arranged a series of further one-day meetings to develop and test the model and coordinated the work of the computer programmer and Web production specialists. The FEMS model is being produced on CD-ROM and will be made available on the Firth Estuary Forum's website, together with a description of the modelling process, in 2000.

Staff provided: Dr M.G. Murray (Workshop Facilitator and Ecologist).

December 1997

August 2000

20,000 US$