On Wednesday 17 August, senior Aberdeenshire Council representatives attended a meeting at The Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, at which they were updated on some of the Macaulay’s current areas of research.

Aberdeenshire Council was represented by Christine Gore, Director of Planning and Environmental Services, Gordon Mackie, Environment Manager, James Knowles, Head of Economic Development and Eric Guthrie, Head of Transportation.

Macaulay personnel attending were Professor Maggie Gill, Chief Executive and Director of Research, Steve Albon, Head of Science, and Dr Dave Stevens, Science Communications Specialist.

Presentations were given on the following areas of research by The Macaulay Institute:

1. Planning and public participation in planning by Dr Alister Scott (specialist in rural planning) and Professor David Miller (landscape modeller) – including a viewing of the Macaulay’s Virtual Landscape Theatre.
2. Catchment management and stakeholder involvement by Dr Simon Langan (principal research scientist), Dr Kirsty Blackstock (researcher) and Dr Wendy Kenyon (researcher) – discovering how natural processes and human actions affect water resources.
3. Development and contaminated land – by Dr Fiona Moore (Manager of Environmental Services sector of Macaulay Enterprises Ltd) – the land assessment work currently being carried out in the Aberdeenshire area.

Aberdeenshire Council updated Macaulay representatives on its policy and developments relating to renewable energy and biomass, ongoing cross organisation research, and the Council’s Local Transport Strategy and Environmental Assessment.

The Macaulay Institute is the premier land use research institute in the UK. Two hundred and seventy staff are based at the Macaulay Institute at Craigiebuckler in Aberdeen. The Macaulay Institute aims to be an international leader in research on the use of rural land resources for the benefit of people and the environment and is involved in research across the globe; from Scotland to Chile and China. More about the Macaulay Institute can be found at www.macaulay.ac.uk .

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The Macaulay Institute’s ‘Virtual Landscapes Theatre’ is the first mobile unit of its kind in the UK, and was purchased with funding from the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD). It allows virtual landscapes to be computer generated and to be viewed by up to 10 observers at one time using an ‘immersive wrap-around’ screen.

The facility will play a key role in developing the innovative elements of the Macaulay Institute’s scientific programme of research on landscape change, increasing the effectiveness of knowledge-transfer and improving end user relevance in the understanding and awareness of issues in the management of future landscape changes.

Among the principal research applications of the facility are participatory planning, where stakeholders are included in the design of landscape changes such as the introduction of a wind farm, and testing public preferences for alternative land use scenarios, such as the ‘recreational potential’ of future landscapes.

Catchment Management – discovering how natural processes and human actions affect water resources The Macaulay’s catchment management research programme is unique in the UK because it includes socio-economic science as well as the biophysical science of catchments. It addresses problems such as the way society uses water resources and the cost of changing current practices.

The Macaulay’s catchment management research aims to:

• comprehend how pollutants move through the environment;
• assess the impact of pollutant transfers on soil and water ecology;
• develop tools and methodologies to help predict how human activities might affect the environment;
• provide the scientific underpinning to help develop and implement public policy.