Slow science: Benefits for the management of headwater catchments

Abstract

Long-term research, which respects the timescales of environmental systems and catchment processes, is important for effective headwater management. However, research is, increasingly being governed by the short-timescales of annual academic and financial reporting and research grants, with negative consequences for research quality. The arguments for ‘Slow Science’ are supported here by results from two case studies. The first qualifies the knee-jerk prognoses of much disaster punditry by showing that severe landslide outfalls on a reach of roadway in the Himalaya are caused by increases in landslide volume but not frequency and that landslide frequency is associated with small on-going processes, in this case suburbanisation. The second reports results from an experiment designed to determine the benefits of initial fertilisation on the growth of trees for coal-land reclamation projects in Wales. This shows how different, statistically validated, results, which might be used to create contradictory recommendations about the value of fertiliser application, may be collected at different stages of forest recovery, in this case, from data collected 3, 5 and 10 years after plantation. In both case studies, the findings could only be obtained through sustained long-term, ‘slow’ research. Environmental research were better designed to address the timescales of environmental systems.