Glossary

Glossary

Ecosystem services

Ecosystem services are “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems”1 including the supply of food and fuel (‘provisioning’); flood, temperature and erosion control (‘regulating’); opportunities for recreation and relaxation (‘social/cultural’) and areas for biodiversity (‘supporting’).  Their importance is recognised by national government with an initial and follow-on national ecosystem services assessment and a programme of related activities 2,3

 

  1. UKNEA (2011) UK National Ecosystem Assessment.
  2. UKNEA (2011) UK National Ecosystem Assessment: follow on phase reports
  3. Government guidance on ecosystem services

Emissions: per capita / per pound

Pollutant (in this case carbon) releases represented per head of population or per monetary unit.

Endogenous change

Purposeful adaptation to manage the probability of flooding, the exposure to floods and/or the vulnerability of those exposed.  

Energy Company Obligation (ECO)

A policy which requires the main energy suppliers to fund energy efficiency and heating system improvements in homes. It has three strands: the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERO), the Carbon Saving Communities Obligation (CSCO), and the Home Heat Cost Reduction Obligation (HHCRO). CERO provides wall and loft insulation to any household with a suitable property. CSCO provides insulation to households living in specific low-income areas and households which are both receiving specific benefits and living in rural areas. HHCRO provides measures which reduce heating costs (including replacement boilers) to households receiving specific benefits, unless they live in social rented accommodation.

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)

This is a certificate given to properties which have received an energy survey resulting in a SAP score and banding (see also SAP).

Energy vulnerability

A situation where a household has high energy needs relative to its ability to pay for energy

Enhanced exposure

Enhanced exposure refers to aspects of the physical environment, such as the availability of green space or housing characteristics, which tend to accentuate or offset the severity of heat wave or flood events. This includes aspects of the built environment which can be managed through adaptation and which may not all be included within available hazard-exposure mapping.

 

Lindley, S., O’Neill, J., Kandeh, J., Lawson, N., Christian, R. & O’Neill M. (2011) “Climate change, justice and vulnerability”, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Report, York

 

Which places are disadvantaged?

Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why. Epidemiological information is used to plan and evaluate strategies to prevent illness and as a guide to the management of patients in whom disease has already developed.

 

The British Medical Journal

Equality Act (2010)

The Equality Act (2010) legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat someone.

 

Equality Act 2010: Guidance

Equivilisation

A statistical process that normalises or levels incomes and costs to account for different compositions and numbers of people in any given household. In the fuel poverty context, the main objective is to account for larger households that generally have higher fuel bills and therefore require higher overall incomes to maintain the same quality of life as smaller households.

 

Office for National Statistics

Exogenous change

Changes that cannot be significantly influenced by FRM policy. Examples include climate change and population growth.

Expected Annual Damage (EAD)

The expected annual damage is the average of flood damages calculated over a number of events. The total damages for each event is then multiplied by the event probability to provide the annual damage.  This is then summed for all return periods to provide the Expected Annual Damage for all events. 

Exposure

The degree to which people or other systems come into contact with conditions or events with the capacity to cause harm.1

 

In the context of ClimateJust, this refers to potential exposure to climate-related events as measured by data from the Environment Agency and UKCP09. Exposure can also be taken as The presence of people; livelihoods; environmental services and resources; infrastructure; or economic, social, or cultural assets in places that could be adversely affected.2

 

  1. Adapted from IPCC (2001)
  2. IPCC, 2012: Glossary of terms. In: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation [Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA, pp. 555-564 

Extreme weather events

The occurrence of a value of a weather or climate variable above (or below) a threshold value near the upper (or lower) ends of the range of observed values of the variable. This covers events which are very unusual in terms of baseline climate.

 

IPCC, 2012: Glossary of terms. In: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation [Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA, pp. 555-564.