Hannah Fay Curzon
PhD Student

Profile

Biography

I am a social scientist with an interdisciplinary background in Environmental Economics, Environmental Management, International Environmental Law and Environmental Policy. My previous research has looked at environmental valuation techniques and the use of rigorous policy evaluation in the conservation sector. I am particularly interested in ecosystem services and the integration of socio-economic research into environmental and ecological disciplines, particularly land-use planning and restoration ecology. My current research combines my interests by looking at the value of ecosystem services provided by a post-extraction peatland landscape which is currently the focus of a major restoration project. Specifically, I am using a non-monetary socio-cultural valuation approach to assess the social value of cultural ecosystem services provided by this rare landscape. I am particularly interested in using a mixed-methods approach with a specific focus on participatory and deliberative techniques. I hope my research will highlight the need to draw on diverse stakeholder perspectives and integrate the multi-dimensional value of ecosystem services into environmental assessments and land management decisions more generally.

Career

Departmental roles

2016 – 2017 Department of Environment and Geography, PhD Student Representative

Spring 2017 Demonstrator Biodiversity and Society (3rd year undergraduate module)

Autumn 2016 Demonstrator Tools and Techniques for Studying the Environment (1st year undergraduate module)

2015 – 2016 White Rose Doctoral Training Centre ‘Environment and Sustainability Pathway’ Student Representative

Publications

Selected publications

Curzon, H.F. & Kontoleon, A., 2016. From ignorance to evidence? The use of programme evaluation in conservation: evidence from a Delphi survey of conservation experts. The Journal of Environmental Management, 180, pp. 466-475. 

Research

Overview

PhD Title: Measuring the Social Value of Cultural Ecosystem Services in a Post-industrial Landscape: A Case Study on the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve.

Supervisors: Prof. Piran White, Dr. Julia Touza-Montero and Dr. Kathryn Arnold

Funding: ESRC and Natural England

Description of Thesis:

Ecosystem services (ES) are the direct and indirect benefits people derive from ecosystems and has become a widely accepted framework to assess the contribution of nature to human well-being. To date, the majority of assessments have focused on formal economic valuations or ‘market value’ of ecosystem services. Cultural ecosystem services (CES), such as aesthetic and spiritual and other ‘intangible’ or ‘non-material’ values, have proven resistant to economic valuation leading to increased calls for other value domains such as the socio-cultural perspective to be considered. Unlike market valuation, socio-cultural valuation considers the importance/preference people place on ES based on the perceived contribution to their mental or physical well-being. In particular, the approach is rapidly gaining attention as a method to value CES and increase the visibility of non-material benefits. As the number of studies using socio-cultural perspective is still limited, a standard valuation approach is yet to be established.

Healthy peatlands deliver a range of vital CES providing significant social benefits. However, many peatlands have been severely degraded and can only recover through large-scale restoration projects. To date there has been limited research on how to evaluate the impact of peatland restoration on ecosystem service delivery and quantify the wider benefits and risks to society. The Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve (HHP-NNR), the largest area of lowland raised mire in Britain, is currently the focus of a major EU LIFE+ funded project to restore the peat-bog to a favourable condition. Using this unique peatland landscape as my focus, my PhD research will use a number of socio-cultural valuation methods, including a mixture of surveys, archival analysis, personal interviews and interactive workshops, to explore CES values on the reserve.

Recognising the inherently spatial nature of ecosystem services, my research will also use a variety of specific-place mapping techniques increasingly used in Landscape Research. Specifically, this study  has applied ‘Photo-voice’ in a novel way to produce qualitative and spatially explicit data in the form of geo-tagged photographs and photo-narratives to link socio-cultural values to places and visual landscape preferences to produce a map of CES. To collect the data, visitors to the reserve took part in a ‘Photo-Quest’ where they were asked to take photographs, document why they were of interest or meaning and record their location using a GPS. Unlike traditional participatory mapping, the added advantage of this approach was it could also be used to explore spatially inexplicit CES values such as ‘sense of place’ or ‘spirituality,’ as participants were not bound by what could be mapped nor by what could be ‘seen’ in their images but could also reflect on past experiences and their relationship with the reserve. To further advance participant voice and add a deliberative component to the valuation process, the next stage of the research will invite participants and other community stakeholders to an interactive workshop to contribute to the data analysis and promote a critical dialogue that will be used to explore shared CES values across different stakeholder groups. These workshops will also be used to explore how traditional participatory GIS (P-GIS) can be used in a group setting to capture CES values and explore how they are linked to particular landscape features. The results will be used to help evaluate the net cultural benefit of restoration under different land management decisions.