catchment

Applying and developing catchment and national scale water quality models for nitrogen, phosphorus and faecal indicator organisms.

Developing sediment tracing tools using biomarkers and stable isotopes.

Linking physico-chemical indicators of water quality to ecological status.

My research focuses on governance, particularly public and stakeholder participation in environmental policy making and implementation. I have an associated interest in the use of 'tools' as deliberative boundary objects in decision making and evaluation processes. I generally favour mixed qualitative methods such as interviews, focus groups and participant observation. Threading through my research is an interest in reconciling critical approaches to policy making and implementation with constructive engagement in knowledge exchange with policy actors. This reflects my interest in ‘studying up’ – using the politics and practices of participatory research to work with people in positions of power and authority.  Currently, I am considering how systemic approaches co-exist with, conflict with or shape existing policies shaping Scottish land and water management, and moving into the study of reconciling living within planetary boundaries with social, environmental and geographical justice.

Ongoing projects

• I am part of the Hutton team contributing to the H2020 project “Moving Towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus Security” (MAGIC - see also here) led by Mario Giampietro at Autonomous University of Barcelona (2016-2020).  My focus is to work on the 'semantic' phase of the quantitative story telling cycle - elicting and analysing narratives about the Common Agricultural Policy and its interaction with the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, Climate Change and Sustainable Develoment Goals; and discussing with EU stakeholders whether the outcomes of the social metabolism accounting are feasible, viable and/or desirable.
• I coordinated the Scottish Government Strategic Research Programme WP1.4 on “Integrated and Sustainable Management of Natural Assets“ from April 2016 to April 2018. I contribute to several aspects of the research, including supporting our consideration of how adaptive management is practiced in Scotland (WP1.4.3) and participating in the Scottish Forum for Natural Capital's working group on Future Land Manager Business Models. My substantive contributions are focussed on how policy implementation can better support the delivery of multiple benefits and protect our natural assets. The focus is on the coordination or integration of policy instruments and the role of monitoring in developing a more systemic approach to management.
• I work closely with two Macaulay Development Trust Fellows - Jessica Maxwell with reference to linking planning to ecosystem services; and Paola Ovando-Pol with reference to Natural Capital. I also supervise a Macaulay Development Trust funded PhD studentship on Natural Capital Accounting: Distribution of Benefits. Oliver Zwiner is co-supervised by myself and Julia Martin-Ortega (University of Leeds).

• Past Projects

• Scottish Government (RESAS) Theme 1.3 RP2 Research on Ecosystem services and the Ecosystem Approach
• Scottish Government (RESAS) Theme 1.3 RP3 supporting the Scottish Government Land Use Strategy Regional Land Use Pilot Project, working with Aberdeenshire Council and a range of stakeholders. Click here for information about the regional pilot and the overall project reports and here for information on the Local Focus Area workshops held in Ballater and Huntly.
• ESSPI-CREW a project to explore whether the aim of the new Centre of expertise for Water (CREW) was meeting its aim - to explore and improve science-policy-practice interfaces, and to foster effective links between research and the policy development and implementation cycle.
• CREW call down projects:A project looking at using the Ecosystem Approach to implement the Water Framework Directive in Scotland: and a project looking at developing and applying a method to assess the Benefits of Private Drinking Water Supply Grants
• RESAS - evaluating stakeholder involvement in the Cairngorms National Park and Scottish River Basin Planning Processes; uptake of management practices to mitigate Diffuse Pollution;
• FP7 project on the Community-based Management of Environmental Challenges in Latin America. Its objective was to identify sustainable community-based governance models for the management of natural resources that could be used in different social-ecological systems in a context of climate change and increasing competition for the use of these resources.
• Macaulay Development Trust: Learning Landscape Partnerships
• Interreg - farmer involvement in flood management; the implementation of Water Framework Directive (3 Dee Vision);
• FP7 - using sustainability assessments in strategic planning.
• PhD projects on agri-tourism;  linking RBMP with land use planning; and sustainable tourism indicators Understanding the neglected : a framework for indicator selection in sustainable tourism.
• DEFRA -  the National Ecosystem Assessment

• How are efforts for adaptive (co)governance shaped and constrained by existing institutions and ways of working? How do the various goals for environmental governance - i.e. to be more joined up, to more effective, to be more efficient - interact? What are the implications for adapting or reforming existing and policy and governance arrangements?
• When might it make sense to adopt new concepts and instruments for environmental management? How can we best understand the challenges and consequences of implementing such new concepts, especially those (such as the 'Ecosystem Approach') that encourage a systemic approach to connect multiple issues?
• How are different knowledges produced and used in collaboration and decision-making? If and how do concepts (such as ecosystem services) or tools (such as scenario-planning) influence processes of knowledge co-production, including in science-policy interfaces? How do monitoring and evaluation programmes reflect and shape expectations of knowledge use?
• How do efforts to encourage more collaborative and participatory approaches in environmental management and governance play out, and what are the tensions and interactions with other drivers and approaches?

Kerry's main ongoing research projects

• Transdisciplinary research to prompt reflection on the suitability of European policy processes for nexus governance, particularly in relation to sustainable agriculture, within the project MAGIC 'Moving Towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus Security', running 2016-2020 and funded by EU H2020.
• Identifying how interacting policy instruments shape consideration of tradeoffs in natural resource management, and the opportunities for 'new' instruments such as Payments for Ecosystem Services.  This is funded by the Scottish Government RESAS Strategic Research Programme 2016-2021.
• Managing a package of work on 'Effective Water Management', and within this leading work to explore if and how multiple goals may be appraised and delivered.  This is funded by the Scottish Government RESAS Strategic Research Programme 2016-2021.

Kerry's current work predominantly uses qualitative research methods, e.g. collecting data from semi-structured interviews, workshops, participant observation, analysed using both inductive and deductive approaches.  She also has expertise in quantitative methods e.g. design, deployment and quantiative analysis of paper and online surveys for primary data collection, design and deplyment of systematic reviews and meta-analyses to analyse secondary data. She has an established track record in project management, stakeholder engagement, line management, student supervision, data management and research ethics.

Kerry currently co-supervises 1 PhD student: Kirsty Holstead, who is building understanding of community water governance, funded by a Hydronation scholarship, with Dr Shona Russell at the University of St Andrews. She previously co-supervised Sam Poskitt, who is exploring the potential of scenario-planning to support learning for sustainable development, joint funded by ESRC and the James Hutton Institute, with Dr Andrew Ainslie at the University of Reading. Sam obtained his PhD in March 2018 and now works at the University of Reading on the participatory extension work in developing countries.

Kerry is a trustee of the Orskov Foundation, a charitable foundation that supports students and communities to develop sustainable land use to support livelihoods in lower-income countries. She is also a research associate of CECHR, the Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience at Dundee.   Within the Institute, Kerry has led the 'Society Institutions and Governance' sub-group of SEGS, and she also founded the SEGS blog.